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1890 I 



ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED AT THE CELEBEATION OF T3E 



250th anniversary 



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OF THE- 



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JUNE 12,- 1890. 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE, 



JOHN H. HUNT, rUBLISHER, SAG-HAKBO 



ol, N. Y. 



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1640 1890 

ADDRESSES 

DELIVERED AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE 

250th anniversary 

OF THE ^ 

y 
VILLAGE AND TOWN OF SOUTHAMPTON, 

JUNE i2TH. 1890, 



HON. HENRY P. HEDGES, Bridge-Hampton, N. Y. 

GEOEGE R. HOWELL, A. M., Albany, N. Y. 

WM. S. PELLETREAU, A. M., New-York City, N. Y. 

REV. SAMUEL E. HERRICK, D. D., Boston, Mass. 



InGlucliiig IntrGduGtion, Programme of Pro- 
■ oeedings and Original Odos. 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE. 



JOHN H. HUNT, PUBLISHER, 
SAG-HARBOR, N. Y. 



^««»»^ 1890- 



-^1 



-1- 



INTRODUCTION. 



At the annual Town Meeting of the electors of the Town 
of Southampton, on Tuesday, April 2d, 1SS9, it was voted 
that a committee of five, of which the Supervisor should be 
one, be appointed by the chair, to make preparations for cel- 
ebrating the anniversary of the fifth semi-centennial of the 
settlement of the Town. 

P. R. Jennings, chairman of that meeting, after consulta- 
tion with many public spirited citizens of the Town, appoint- 
ed as the committee, in addition to the Hon. James H. Pier- 
son, Supervisor, Gilbert H. Cooper* of Sag-Harbor, G. Clarence 
Topping of Sagaponack, James H. Foster of Southampton 



* Gilbert H. Cooper, one of the committee of arrangements, 
was a lineal descendant, on the father's side, from "Thomas 
Cooper the elder," and on the mother's side from Thomas Sayi'e, 
both of them among the earliest founders of the town of South- 
ampton. He had very efficiently aided in the arrangements and 
labors preparatory to this celebration, and with all the glowing 
ardor of his nature was interested in forwarding the publication 
of the proceedings and addresses. He met with the printer 
and writer hereof on Satiu'day, the 26th day of July, 1890, to 
consult on these subjects. By arrangement he was to meet the 
committee at Sag-Harbor on Satui-day, the 2d of August, 1890, to 
promote the object desired. He had retu-ed apparently in his 
usual health on the pre\'ious evening. When, on the morning 
following, a member of the family called him to rise, the folded 
bands, the sUent lips, the luimoving eye, made no response. 
Possibly he would have chosen to avoid the painful parting, the 
gathering infirmities, the lingeiing pains of dissolution. If his 
preference was to meet with God's people on that last evening on 
earth, join in their worship, offer his prayer with theii's, and then 
hear the Anthem of Heaven, his preference may have been gra- 
ciously gi'anted. The writer, with the consent of the sur\dving 
members of the committee, enshi'ines the memory of his old 
schoolmate and friend with these endui'ing memorials of the 
Town, and of the memorable event in which he well bore a part. 

H. P. H. 



ir INTRODUCTION. 

village, and Erastus F. Post of Quogue. The committee or- 
ganized by the appointment of James H. Foster as its chair- 
man, and G. Clarence Topping as secretary. In the autumn 
of 1889 the committee, in accordance with what seemed to be 
a general desire of the people, informally invited Hon. Henry 
P. Hedges to deliver the principal historical address, and 
early in 1890 invited the President of the Long Island Histor- 
ical Society, R. S. Storrs, D. D., George R. Howell, the his- 
torian, of the New-York State Library, William S. Pelle- 
treau, A. M,, the eminent antiquarian, and Samuel E. Herrick, 
D. D., of Boston, Mass., to deliver addresses on the occasion. 
Dr. Storrs declined, assigning as reasons his many existing 
engagements and expressing his inabihty and his regret. 
The oiher invited gentlemen all accepted. The latter three 
named were natives of Southampton. Judge Hedges, al- 
though a native of East-Hampton, and in 1849 the bi-centen- ■ 
nial orator there, had been a resident of this town during all 
his professional life, since 1843, and had done semi centennial, 
centennial and bi-centennial work here and alsewhere. 

At the Town Meeting held on the 1st day of April, 1S90, 
the committee, through their chairman, reported their action 
to the meeting, which accepted and approved their report, 
and voted to raise $800 to be appropriated, or so much there- 
of as should be required, towards the expense of celebrating 
the coming anniversary of the settlement of the town. The 
date of the second deed for Southampton from James Farrett 
is 12th June, 1640, which w^as chosen as the day for the 
celebratiorj. 

The committee at an early day invited attendance from the 
Historical Societies of the state of Massachusetts, of Plymouth, 
of Connecticut, New Haven, Hartford, New London, of the 
*State of New- York, City of New-York, Long Island, Suffolk 

* .The persons or societies foUowing appeared individually or 
by represoutative. 



INTRODUCTION. lU 

County, N. Y., New- York Geographical, Genealogical and 
Biographical Societies, American Historical Magazine, descen- 
dants of Lion Gardiner, Judges of the Supreme Court, Super- 
visors of Suffolk County, the County Judges past and pres- 
ent. Surrogate, District Attorney, &c. 

It had been a difficult problem for the committee to decide 
where to hold the celebration. The church would be too 
small, a tent in a storm would be an insufficient protection . 
Fortunately the large building, 45x120 feet, then erected and 
being finished, on the south side of Job's Lane, promised ac- 
commodation for nearly two thousand people, and was chosen 
and arranged and magnificently decorated therefor. But even 
that spacious hall would have proved entirely inadequate but 
for the ominous thunder and light showers in the early morn- 
ing and the overcast, threatening look of the heavens during 
most of the day, preventing a large attendance from remote 
districts. In the morning and evening the crowd was barely 
sheltered. In the afternoon not over two-thirds could enter 
the already packed building. 

The interest of the people of the town in this historic cele- 
bration grew in intensity until its conclusion. The commit- 
tee of arrangements labored assiduously to make it the suc- 
cess which public opinion pronounced it to be, In this they 
were efficiently aided by the hearty co-operation of their 
townsmen and of the ladies. The organizing genius of Dr. 
E. G. Howard was never more conspicuous or more success- 
ful than in the leadership of the 125 voices that rolled in har- 
mony as one in the music of this historic day. 

Of the morning exercise, after welcome to the vast audience 
by the chairman, invocation was offered by Rev. B. F. Reeve, 
of Sag-Harbor, followed by the Historical Address, occupying 
notwithstanding much undelivered, one hour and forty 
minutes. Of the afternoon addresses, occupying some two 
and a half hours, the reader can properly judge. At the time 



rV INTRODUCTION. 

of their delivery the audience accepted them as appropriate 
memorials of the occasion and the memorable event they 
were designed to commemorate. The exercises of the even- 
ing were necessarily of a character difficult to define. Long 
beforehand they were dependent on the attendance of piofes- 
sional and representative men who at the last moment might 
be summoned to attend the inexorable calls of business life. 
Esquire Foster, somewhat wearied with the exacting labors 
of this and previous days_, had requested Judge Hedges to 
preside in the evening. The Judge, freed from the responsi- 
bility of his long address, was in elastic spirit, but soon found 
of all the invited speakers for the evening, none were present 
save Judge Howland and General Swayne. Lengthening 
out his introductions to enliven and interest the audience, he 
called on Edward F. DeLancey, of the New-York State His- 
torical Society, who responded for the old and honored socie- 
ty he represented. Hon. John A. King, president of that 
society, was present, but preferred not to speak on the occa- 
sion. Hon. Richard C. McCorraick, ex- Governor of Arizona, 
next spoke, advocating the preservation of the memorials of 
the olden time, as eloquently presented in the address of S. E. 
Herrick, D. D. Nicoll Floyd, of Mastic, L. I., great-grand- 
son of Wilham Floyd, of this County, signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, was next called on, and responded in 
behalf of his illustrious ancestor, modestly urging the adop- 
tion of the plan suggested by Dr. Herrick for preservation of 
the historic materials and memorials of the olden time. Sur- 
rogate James H. Tuthill, President of the Suffolk County 
Historical Society, in well chosen words responded to the call 
as representative of that society. 

The playful allusion of Judge Hedges to the "supposed dog" 
which the Judge declared he never owned was to the audience 
a source of amusement. Evidently the hour for serious his- 
toric study had passed and the hour for lighter reading had 



INTRODUCTION. " 

come. The brilliant epigram and anecdote of the folbwing 
speaker, Judge Howland, like a succession of exploding fire- 
works, fascinated and held the audience in good humor. 
Gen. Svvayne spoke of that tide of emigration moving from 
Jamestown and Virginia to the territory northwest of the Ohio 
river, of which his ancestors formed a part, joining there the 
tide moving from Plymouth Kock and enjoying that exemp- 
tion from slavery that ensured this Continent for Freedom. 
An address, based upon the profoundest principles and illus- 
trated with interesting and amusing event and anecdote. 
Judge Reid made the closing address with facile word and 
apt allusion, deploring the lack of historic interest in the 
town he represented (Babylon) latest organized of all the 
towns in Snffolk County. 

The display and sale of memorial medals ; the wigwam 
near at hand constructed by one of the fast vanishing race of 
Shinnecocks ; the residences tastefully decorated with Hags 
and banners ; the thunder of cannon at intervals throughout 
the day ; the parade of one hundred young horsemen on gaily 
caparisoned steeds ; the moving tlirough the streets of a 
whale boat on wheels with some of the ancient mariners 
therein ; were among the novel, interesting and entertaining 
features of the memorable day. 

The programme following may aid the reader to grasp the 
spirit of the occasion. 



PROGRAMME. 

The 250tli anniversary of the settlement of the Village and Town 

of Southampton, will be celebrated in the spacious hall 

at the head of Lake Agawam, in said village, 

THUESDAY, JUNE 12tli, 1890. 

The ringing of bells and firing of cannon will usher in the day. 
The exercises will be as follows : 



MOENING— commencing at 10:30 o'clock. 

The meeting in the Hall will open w4th prayer by Rev. B. F. 
Reeve, of Sag-Harbor, followed with music by the Sag-Harbor 
Comet Band, accompanied by a large Chorus, all under the di- 
rection of Dr, E. G. Howard. 

James H. Foster, chairman of the committee of arrangements, 
will speak words of welcome. 

An Historical Address will be delivered by Hon. Henky P. 
Hedges. 

An Ode, written for the occasion, will be rendered by the Chorus 



AFTERNOON— commencing at 2:45 o'clock. 

Music by the Band and Chorus. 

Address by George R. Howell, A. M., of the New- York State 
Library. Subject: "Our Puritan Ancestors." 

Music. 

Address by William S. Pelletreau, A. M. Subject : "Changes 
in Social and Family Life since the Settlement of Southampton." 

Music. 

Address by Rev. Samuel E. Herrick, D. D. Subject : "Our 
Relation to the Past, a Debt to the Future." 

Ode. 



EVENING — commencing at 8 o'clock. 

Music by the Band. 

Several gentlemen have accepted invitations to speak in the 
evening, among whom are Elihu Root, Frederick Betts, T. G. 
TnoMAS, M. D., Hon. Henry Howland, and Gen. J. Wager Swayne. 

Per order of James H. Foster, James H. Pierson, 

Gilbert H. Cooper, G. Clarence Topping, 

Erastds F. Post, Committee. 



ODE,?. 



The pieces sung were " America," Wliittier's " Centennial 
Hymn," Bacons' "Forefathers' Day," the hymn commencing "Let 
the Hills and Vales Resound," and the two following odes com- 
posed for the occasion. 



sma FOR OUR sires. 



Sing a great song for our su-es ! Tell their fame ! 

Heroes of faith were they, true men and brave, 
Pilgrims of Hope to this lone land they came ; 

Hope, like a star, shone serene o'er the wave. 
Faithful to conscience, and strong for the right, 

Guiding their steps by the light of God's word, 
Kept they the faith and fought the good fight, 

Knowing no fear save " the fear of the Lord." 



Sing a great song for our dear native land. 

Glorious heritage, gift of the past ! 
Countless her sons as the grains of sand 
Fringing with silver her ocean lines vast. 

Riches and power imbounded increase ; 
Fair as the sunrise are all her wide fields ; 

Freedom mhabits her borders, and peace 
Reigns where the freeman the sovereignty wields. 



Smg we this day a great song to the Lord, 

Sing to Jehovah, our forefather's God ! 
God was the King whom the Pilgrims adored, 

Counting no human king worthy then' laud. 
Our King is God ! Him we honor and praise, 

He is the giver of freedom and peace. 
Glorious He, in His wisdom and ways ; 

Sing to His name ! Let His praise never cease ! 



ODES. 

TWO HUNDRED YEAES AGO. 



All hail to thee, thou ancient spot, 

The loyal knee we bend. 
And homage give to Thee, oh God, 

"Who doth such blessings send. 
These spreading plains were opened first 

By hands long since grown cold. 
And all the hearts that i^lanned this home 

For us, are 'neath the mold. 
The God of our forefathers rules 

This spot now as of yore, 
"When they from home and kinsmen sailed 

To seek this stranger shore. 
The music of the mighty sea 

The same melodious tones 
Bears to the loyal heart to-day, 

As ever it has done. 
And may the next two himdred years 

Still keep true hearts aglow, 
That they may sing, as we to-day, 

"Two Hundred Years Ago." 

The years are ghding swiftly by. 

And soon will all who raise 
Their voice to-day, be gathered home. 

That Better Land to praise. 
But when three hundred years have rolled 

In grandeur all sublime, 
May many who to-day rejoice, 

Then see that glorious time ; 
And homage give, to those who won, 

By noble deeds each day. 
The honors to whom now we give 

The tribute of our lay. 
May this the footstool of God's thi'one 

Unsullied still remain, 
"When still another century 

Shall claim a new refrain. 
And may the voices then attuned, 

With love and joy o'erflow, 
When they shall sing as we sing now, 

"Two Hundred Years Ago." 



A^ REQUEST. 



We the subscribers, residents and citizens (or natives) of 
Suffolk County, respectfully request that Hon. Henry P. 
Hedges will consent to having his portrait used for a frontis- 
piece to the volume of The Proceedings of the Celebration of 
the 2'50th Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of South- 
ampton, believing as we do that it will be highly appreciated 
by the public as a memento of one who has so long been 
identified with the affairs of Town, County and State. 

ORVILLE B. ACKERLY, 71 Broadway, N. Y. 

JAMES H. FOSTER, ] 

JAMES H. PIERSON, | Committee 

GILBERT H. COOPER, } of 

G. CLARENCE TOPPING, | Arrangements. 

ERASTUS F. POST, J 

WM. S. PELLETREAU, 

M. H. TOPPING, 

S. G. LUDLOW, 

ROBT. E. TOPPING, 

HENRY C. PL ATT, 

J. J. HARRISON. 

WILLIAM J. POST, 

P. R. JENNINGS, 

DAVID H. RAYNOR, 

MARCUS E. GRIFFIN, 

L. E. TERRY, 

E. A. CARPENTER, 

JOHN H. HUNT, 

JOHN SHERRY, 

BRINLEY D. SLEIGHT. 

WM. WALLACE TOOKER, 

THOS. F. BISGOOD, 

SAME. P. OSBORNE, 

JOSEPH S. OSBORNE, 

DAVID J. GARDINER, 

BENJ. H. VanSCOY, 

J. T. GARDINER, 

J. K. PARSONS, 




T^M 




ADDRESS BY HON, H, P, HEDGES. 



FiiiENfw OF Southampton : 

An eminent New England logician and divine defined Truth 
as "the reality of things." If Truth be such in its unlimited 
domain, then History might be defined as the record of the 
Reality of past things. Born in the beginnings of time, its 
recording pen has written the story of age after age with 
augmenting minuteness and light, until it seems as if "there 
is nothing covered that shall not be revealed." Errors long 
uncorrected, mistakes long unrectified, events long misstated, 
characters long covered with unjust disgrace or undeserved 
applause ; all these the impartial undimmed eye of history has 
seen and her voice unsparingly declared for the truth. If the 
myths, the errors, the mistakes, once accepted, now rejected, 
had been followed by a sound proportioned to the falsehoods 
exploded, the earth would tremble with the shock. Let us 
remember that history delights in certainty. The universal 
patented tradition of pedigree, "there we;-e three brothers 
came over, one settled in Massachusetts, one in New Jersey 
and one on Long Island," even that elicits but an incredulous 
8mile over the obvious illusion and the heavy strain on Long 
Island. 

THE COMPACT FOR SETTLEMENT. 

In the records of the town of Southampton is an Agreement 
dated March 10th, 1639, signed by some twenty persons 
therein proposing a settlement on Long Island. There is no 
known document so ancient proposing the settlement of a 
town on this Island by Englishmen. 

To the inquiries of the Antiquarian and Historian this In- 
strument gives many full clear answers. It blazes with light 



10 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

concerning the origin, the settlers and settlement of the good 
old town of Southampton. It is entitled ^ 'The disposal of the 
vessel," because it disposed of it to Daniel How, reserving 
such u?e thereof as the contemplated colony might require, to 
found which it had been purchased. Yet it is does more, '»«<^ 
far more than that. Framed at Lynn, Massachusetts, before 
the voyage began, which resulted in the removal of the Col- 
onists with their families and goods to Southampton, it bound 
the signers to submit to righteous, to a fair division and im- /-ou^-^y 
provement of the property purchased until a church was 
founded. It was an organic Instrument or Constitution for 
the Government of the future colony, as truly as that signed 
in the cabin of the l\Iayflower. The moment the colonists 
landed, this compact bound the settlers and never released its 
hold until some other authority superceded this original or- 
ganic law. The organizing genius of the Anglo Saxon mind, 
its capacity to institute and enforce self-government, shine in 
letters of light in the very origin of the town, and antedate 
the voyage of exploration for the search and site of the future 
colony, Since those owning the vessel, thereby might claim 
exemption from the burdens of taxation, until their advances 
had been repaid, and dispute might arise, this instrument 
anticipated and limited such claim. The entire paragraph 
reads thus : "Forasmuch as we Edward Howell, Edmond 
Farrington, Edmond Needham, Daniel How, Josias Stanbor- 
ough, Thomas Saire, George Welbe and Henry Walton and 
Thomas Halsey, Allen Bread and William Harker have dis- 
bursed four score pounds for the setting forward a plantacon, 
and in regard we have taken upon us to transport at our own 
prop costs and charges all such persons as shall goe at the 
first voyage when those of our company that are chosen there- 
unto shall goe upon discovery and search and to begin and 
and settle a plantation and furthermore in regard all such 
persons soe goeinge upon our accompt have in our vessel the 



ADDRESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 



II 



freedom of half a tunne of goods a person it is thought meete 
that we the forenamed undertakeis should not at any tyme or 
tymes hereafter be lyable to any rates, taxes or impositions, 
nor be put upon any fencing, building of meeting house, 
erecting fortifications, building of bridges, preparing high- 
ways, or otherwise charged for any cause er reason whatso- 
ever, during the time of our discontinuance in our intended 
plantation except that, in the fencing in of plantinge lots every 
man shall with his neighbors, fence or cause to be fenced, by 
the first day of April 10th wch shall be 1641.' 

The extract cited regarding exemption from taxes of the 
undertakers who were so called because they undertook to 
found the colony proves more, far more. It shows that some 
of the company chosen thereunto were to go on a first voyage 
"upon discovery and search and to begin and settle a planta- 
tion." Those going on that first voyage, resulting in the 
landing at Cow Bay and expulsion therefrom by the Dutch, 
were on a voyage contemplating no ending with that or any 
future expulsion. They were on a voyage destined to con • 
tinue, until their commission "to begin and settle a plantation" 
had been executed. You will remember that no uncertainty, 
no doubt, no error can find room here. The record is positive, 
clear, full, unequivocal, as to the intent, purpose and contin- 
urnce of the voyage. In confirmation of this original declara- 
tion of purpose the colonial Records of New-lcbrk (Vol. 2, p. 
p. 144-6, 150, &c.) show that eight or ten pioneers on this 
voyage landed at Cow Bay, built a house and were building 
another when expelled therefrom by the Dutch, 19th May, 
16f 0. James Farrett, agent of the Earl of Sterling, the then 
grantee of Long Island, had by deed, dated April 17th, 3 640, 
intended for this company, given them a right to "sitt down" 
or locate anywhere on Long Island and "enjoy Eight miles 
square of land." By a supplemental deed from Farrett, dated 
June 12th, 1639, ("meaning 1640) the location was fixed be- 



12 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

tween Peaconeck, an Indian villlage at the head of the Peconic 
Bay, and the easternmost point of the Island "with the whole 
breadth of the Island from sea to sea." 

The deed of July 7th, 1640, from Farrett, limits the eight 
miles square west of Shinnecock at the place "where the In- 
dians draw over their canoes" and at the "East," including 
the Neck or Island (now North Haven) over against Farrets 
Island now Shelter Island.) The deed of April conveys a 
right to locate. The deed of June limits the right within the 
expressed bounds. The deed of July finally and forever fixes 
the location. The voyage begun under the deed of April was 
intended to locate the territory conveyed and "to begin and 
settle a plantation.'"' The locating deed of June after the 
expulsion in May implies a search and continuance of the 
voyage, and a location fixed between certain poinds, and in 
July defined and measured by unalterable natural monuments 
and bounds. To all objectors and all doubters we say this 
voyage begun in May was for the declared purpose of begin- 
ning and settling "a plantation." 

The purpose was a continuing purpose, the voyage a con- 
tinuing voyage until the chosen pioneers accomplished their 
mission and "began and settled a plantation." The confirm- 
ing proof of compact and deeds create a presumptio;i of set- 
tlement ib June as yet unrebutted and which we submit the 
objector must rebut or yield his objection. We show a can- 
non ball rolling down hill and that at some time it reached 
the foot. If time has effaced its track, if vegetation hid^its 
course, no known obstacle intervening, the presumption that 
its course was continuous is irresistible, and not overcome by 
the objection "No one saw it go there." The May voyagers 
intending settlement as truly after, as before the expulsion, 
reached Southamption presumably in continuance of the 
original voyage no known obstacle intervening. It is incum 
t)e»t (m the objector to prove that the rolling ball stopped 



ADDKESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 13 

lb- 

short of tbetr destination and not demand of us to demonstrate 

that a continuing purpose continues. 

If the voyage continued the settlement was in June. To 
prove Southampton settled by some subsequent voyage and 
not by this, the objector must overthrow the record and over- 
come all the probabilities of the case. In that day and for 
fifty years after, a voyage to Boston was so perilous that be- 
fore sailing, the prudent landsman made his will and the 
pious seaman asked the prayers of the church for deliverance 
from danger. In 1676 Ephraim, son of this same Daniel 
Howe, in command of a vessel bound from Boston to New 
Haven, was shipwrecked and all on board including his two 
sons and three others perished, leaving him the sole survivor. 
(See Atwater's His. New Haven p. 190, and His. of Lynn, p. 
124.) Our pioneers had cleared the jutting points of Nahan^ 
and Nantasket, crossed the extended shoals of Nantucket, 
rounded the long Sandy Hook of Cape Cod. The Gay Head 
Indian may have seen their vessel enter the Vineyard Sound, 
evade the fearful rocks and reefs that lie North and West and 
South from that bold headland, steering wide from the sunken 
shore of No Mans Land. The gleaming eye of the Narraghan- 
sett might see them off the stormy Point Judith ''high on the 
broken wave" and his tongue mutter malediction. In 
spite of sunken rock and hidden reef and jutting point, of 
yawning billow and muttered curse, they hold their way into 
and along that magnificent Sound that since has born«the 
commerce of a continent. Does the objector insist that these 
men, again false to duty, voluntarily returned and encountered 
the perils they had overcome, when the perils before them, 
great as they were, might be little in comparison with those 
they had passed. There must be no unfair arguing by the 
objector from the present. The Beacon Lights that in 1890 
flash warning from every point on our coast and illuminate 
our harbors and bays and sounds, the tolling bells that planted 



14 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

on our shoals tell us to sheer away from death^ the lowing 
horn that sends its sounding signal through miles of mist and 
fog, not all or any of these in 1640 guided our fathers to these 
shores. Thus the conditions of the times, the circumstances 
of the case, rebut the presumption of a return voyage. And 
the records of the town of Southampton, earliest and first 
born of the English settled towns on Long Island and in the 
State of New- York, dissipating myth and conjecture and 
doubt, commencing the earliest of any town on Long Island 
continuing in unbroken succession to the present day demon- 
strate her title to priority of Settlement. 

Wider refl>;ction, ampler research and crucial controversy, 
confirm this title. Hence this memorable fifth semicentennial 
date, and this glad commemoration day. 

THE SETTLEMENT ORGANIZED. 

At the first the colonists occupied the rudest dwellings, 
the poorest among them partly or wholly underneath the sur- 
face of the enrtJi. (See Records vol. 1 p 79 vol. 2 p. 232 and 
A.twater's History New Haven p. 523). Within a few years 
thereafter comf>rfab]e and substantial houses were built. 
Edward IIuwcll first of all the company styled gentleman, 
seems to have been the most wealthy and the Father of the 
Colony, (Records vol. 1 p. 40). Before the erection of a 
church edifice, Sabbath worship may have been held at his 
house as the amplest for tne purpose. As early as 1645 al- 
lusion is made in the town records to a church previously 
built, probably in 1641 (Vol. 1 p. 37 and 3S). Abraham 
Pierson the first minister held to the exclusive right of the 
church to govern, in both church and state. Adhering to 
this theory of government adopted by the colonies of Massa- 
chusetts and New Haven, which admitted only church mem- 
bers to vote or hold office, we can s»e why he was an ardent 
advocate for the union of Southampton by confederation with 
New Haven. Dissenting from the more liberal constitution 



ADDRESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 15 

of the colonies of Plymouth and Connecticut, he would con- 
sent to no alliance or confederation with either. On this 
question the minister and his flock differed, and their majority 
decision for union with Connecticut led to his early removal 
from Southampton. The antiquarian consulting the Plym- 
outh Colony Records of acts of the Commissioners of the 
United Colonies of New England, might be perplexed to find, 
that at their meeting in Boston in September, 1G43, New 
Haven had liberty to receive into her jurisdiction the Town 
of Southampton, and at a meeting of the Commissioners at 
Hartford in September, 1644, the tib© same liberty was 
granted to the jurisdiction of Connecticut. (See Vol. IX, pp. 
10 and 21.) The adverse views of pastor and people is the 
key to the conflicting applications and actions of the Com- 
missioners. Going back in fancy a little less than five half 
centurios to some bright Sabbath morning, we might see some 
forty rude dwellings sheltering as many families, compactly 
clustered on either side of the then Southampton street. 
Each dwelling is fortified by enclosures of palisades, and all 
are guarded by a like surrounding fortification. Near the 
centre are both watch house and church. The rolling drum- 
beat of Thom.is Sayre calls the worshipers, (Records, Vol. I, 
p. 51). Parents preceding children and servants move to 
the church. The deacons sit fronting the audience, who are 
seated according to rank and station, the men and women 
divided by a centre line. The soldiers with their arms are 
placed conveniently for defence near the door. Minister 
Pierson, serious, spiritual, severe, just, learned, logical, posi- 
tive, presides over the assembly ; with solemn air they await 
his utterance ; with accent stern he invokes that Jehovah 
who thundered from Sinai. Perhaps his prayers, his exhorta- 
tion, his sermon, declare his unalterable conviction concern- 
ing the foundations of human government. "The seven pil- 
lars," "wisdom hath hewn out," he interprets to mean seven 



16 FIFTH SEMI CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 

men by whom authority is to be instituted and organized 
within the church, within it to be perpetuated forever. We 
know historically that the founders of Southampton resisted 
this narrow theory. Perhaps Henry PiersoUj sometimes as 
positive and unyielding as the minister, Edward Howell, de- 
vout and self controlled, Thos. Coooper "the elder," Thos. 
Halsey, self reliant, aggressive, and others unconvinced, repel 
the argument. He the hammer, they the anvil from which 
every hammer's blow rebounded. Thus the minister of mas- 
terly logic, father of the first president of Yale college, born 
here during the father's ministry^ (See Dexter's graduates of 
Yale College, p. 59,) failed to convince and carry with him 
his people. So failing, after some years he removed. All 
honor to that first band of English patriots, who in this their 
earliest experience, called to choose between the great princi- 
ples of civil liberty and partiality for their minister, preferred 
principle above friendship, freedom above tyranny, the rights 
and manhood suffrage of the many, above government of the 
few, the rule of the people before the rule of the church. 
This resolve, made nenrly five half centuries gone by, has 
been affirmed by a liku long experience. For once the peo- 
ple, this people, our fathers, were right, and their minister, 
transcendently great as he truly was, was wrong. 

THE EXPERIMENT SUCCESSFUL. 

The colony at Southampton, remote from any other Eng- 
lish settlement, divided by Peconic Bay from Southold and 
yet farther removed from the island stronghold of staunch 
Lion Gardiner, surrounded by wild beasts and wild Indians, 
set in the wilderness, was like a ship adrift on the ocean, its 
company uncommanded, unofficered, undisciplined, its course 
undetermined, its voyage undecided, its destiny unknown. 
Will the company select and submit to the command of the 
best men ? Will they enforce discipline? Will they project 
a practical and practicable voyage 1 Will they steer straight 



ADDEESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 17 

for the destined port ? Will they with united will man the 
yards, and as the elements permit or compel, spread the can- 
vas or furl the sail I Shall they anchor in the desired haven ! 
Or shall disunion and division leave them victims of their own 
folly, to founder in mid ocean ! 

With such anxious forebodings the friends of the South- 
ampton colony might have watched its fortunes, waited anx- 
iously for tidings from the lone settlement and heard with fear 
lest the news bring the story of disaster and distress, instead 
of hope and cheer. Plas famine, gaunt and ghastly, thinned 
or exterminated their ranks I Has internal strife blotted out 
its victims from the face of the earth ? Has imprudence and 
improvidence lost to them the means of sustenance and de- 
fence I Has wasting disease cruelly called them to untimely 
graves ? Has some sleeping sentinel let in the watchful, 
prowling foe ? Has the savage blotted out the light of civ- 
ilization, the English set in his native wilds ! Has the victor 
whoop of the Shinnecock drowned the battle cry of the An- 
glo Saxon? These are not only the inquiries of friends, but 
of the great heart of humanity, enlightened and elevated, the 
world over. At this distance of time, with little remnant of 
their surroundings but the solid earth whereon we stand, the 
vital air we breathe, the heaving ocean whose roar they heard, 
with bated breath we fancy their exposure, their solitude, 
their danger, and ask tidings of their well being or their 
doom. This colony may lose the knowledge of Jehovah and 
worship the unknown God. It may frown on schools and 
foster ignorance and vice. It may become besotted in in- 
temperance, darkened in superstition, blind to the rights of 
freemen, unfaithful to human liberty, incompetent for self- 
government, the plaything of the demagogue, the object of 
scorn to the good and wise. It may transmit to future times 
the priceless treasures of ancestral piety, free born citizenship, 
enlightened intelligence, enlarged education, beneficent gov- 



18 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

ernment, equal laws, organized industry. Unfaithful to its 
Iiigh mission it may blight and blast all these, and transmit 
to coming generations, the curse of aims, duties, privileges, 
possibilities^ postponed, perverted, perished. 

As time progressed all these questions were favorably an- 
swered. The company of settlers were brave, vigilant, intelli- 
gent, self-controlled, self-reliant, self-governed. Southampton 
contained witliin itself the powers of self-government ; and 
more, it was capable of sending forth colonies endowed with 
like capacity and thus indefinitely multiplying government 
by the people. It was like the first tree created by the Lord 
"yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself." 

THK CHURCH IN 1690. 

If after the lapse of the first half century from the founding 
of the colony we in 1690 survey the situation, there appears 
more commodious and comfortable dwellings. The houses 
in the site of the town are multiplied. The old palisades, 
mementos of impending peril, have decayed and disappeared. 
There are flourishing outlying settlements at North Sea, 
Wickapogue, Water Mill, Cobb, Mecox and Sagabonack. 
There are scattered wigwams sheltering the dwindUng rem- 
nant of the once powerful Shinnecock tribe, '*at Sebonac," 
in the "Neck and on the Hills" ; but west of that the territo- 
ry of the town is an unsettled wilderness. 

Cromwell and the commonwealth have flourished and fallen. 
The axe has struck off the head of the 1st King Charles. 
The 2d Charles, trifling, deceptive, dissolute, has figured on 
the stage. The 2d James, arbitrary, narrow, treacherous, 
has fled to France before the Revolutionary storm of 1688. 
Mary and the Prince of Orange hold the throne of England. 
On a June Sabbath morning we look and find a larger and 
better church has replaced the second and smaller church of 
1651, (Records, Vol. I, p. 90.) The Rev. Robert Fordham, 
minister from 1648 to 1674, amiable, serene, spiritual, has 



ADDRESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 19 

rested from his labors. The short terms of Harriman, Fletch- 
er and Taylor are passed. Not by drum beat, but by the 
bell, sent in 1693 to be recast in London, are the people called 
to worship. Not as in early days when but a handfull respond- 
ed to the call, but now in thronging numbers, from village and 
hamlet, in all the four quarters of the heavens, the people 
gather for worship. I see the bowed form, the trembling 
limbs, the lingering feet of Job Sayre, sole survivor of the 
original band of planters, move with feeble tread to the house 
of God. The Rev. Joseph Whiting, called from Lynn, the 
port of their embarkation, is minister. Learned, devout, 
sympathetic, he leads the worship in deep felt invocation, in 
solemn exposition, in yearning entreaty, in song of praise, in 
divine benediction.' The hardy sons of the pioneers reverently 
listen to the voice of prayer, attend the preaching of the word, 
join in the song of praise. The ardent zeal^ the sublime hope, 
the fervent faith of the fathers animate the sons. Fifty years 
of toil in subduing the wilderness, of battle with the wild 
beasts, of culture of the soil, of adventure on the sea, have 
not subdued the spirit, dimmed the eyes, or quenched the 
courage of these descendants of the band of pioneers who first 
founded this town. Temptation has not overcome them, 
unbelief has not depressed them, the world has not corrupted 
them, infidelity has not poisoned them. Strong arms, clear 
heads, brave hearts, lofty spirits here live to do honor to the 
memory and the name of their fathers. 

THE CHURCH IN 1740, 1790, 1840. 
In another half century ending in 1740 tlie commodiuus 
church building of 1707 stood in fair proportions. The Rev. 
Sylvanus White was minister, son of that Ebenezer, who was 
the first settled minister in Bridge-Hampton in 1695. The 
father was pastor there over half a century, the son here 55 
years, both "faithful unto death." After another half cen- 
tury, a vision of the church, in 1790, would exhibit little 



20 FIFTH SEm-CEN'TENXlAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

change. The unmelodious, inartistic hymnology of 1G90, has 
partially passed away in 1740, and in 1790 the reconstructed 
harmonies of "Watts had expelled the barbarous verses of the 
former age. Although in 1790 there was no settled minister, 
some supply often officiated. Tlie lifted curtain of an hun- 
dred and fift}^ years would show an audience large, devout, 
intelligent, clad in homespun^ starr'd with revolutionary sol- 
diers. We hear the pitch pipe's sound floating clear the key- 
note over gallery and aisle. We hear the hymn loved of the 
fathers, then so often, now so seldom sung : 

" Lord, in the morning Thou shalt hear 
My voice ascending high. 
To Thee will I dii'ect my prayer, 
To Thee lift up mine eye." 

The church of 1S40 is more the subject of memory than of 
history. Yet justice demands mention of the then minister, 
Hugh N. Wilson, D. D., who filled the pulpit, with emphasis 
on the word filled. His profound learning, powerful logic, 
mellow wit, strong fiiith, have made an impression, indelible 
upon his people. 

THE TOWS HAS INTIMATE RELATIONS WITH NEW ENGLAND. 

The relations of the settlers with the Indians were generally 
peaceful. Both Pequots and Narraghansetts had invaded the 
tribes residing on the East End of Long Island, and at times 
extorted the payment of a tribute. To them the coming of 
the whites gave promise of an alliance that might shield the 
Island tribes, from the galling yoke and tributary burden, of 
Pecquet or Xarraghansett oppression. Hence in the deed of 
13th December, 1640, the provision tiiat the grantees, "the 
above named English shall defend us, the said Indians {grant- 
ors) from the unjust violence of whatever Indians shall ille- 
gally assail us." (Records, Vol. I, p. 13.) But the Indian 
was a barbarian, fickle, proud, selfish, resentful, subtle, wily, 



ADDRESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 21 

scheming, of uncertain temper when left to himself. Both 
Pequot and Narraghansett intrigued and conspired with the 
Island tribes to provoke war with the English. Thus the 
Shinnecocks, from fear of the tribes on the continent to which 
they were tributary, and suspicion of the English, whose 
power they dreaded, were as a magazine which the smallest 
spark might kindle to explosion. Each party were carefully 
watching the other. Hence the order on the records of Jan- 
uary 21sfc, 1642, for training, and of October 9th, 1642, for a 
nightly watch. (Records, Vol. I, pp. 26, 27.) 

In May 1645, probably influenced by Poggatacut, Sachem 
of Shelter Island, then the royal sachem, he, the sachems of 
Montauk, of Shinnecock, and Corchaug. offered their services 
as against the English to the Dutch. (See foot note by my 
friend, Wm. W. Tooker, of Sag-Harbor.) 

The Older of October 29th, 1645, as to bearing arms to the 
meeting house on the Lord's Day, directs that ''the one side 
of the town shall bear armes the next Lord's daye and the 
other side of the town shall bear armes the next Lord's daye," 
&c. (See Records, Vol. I, p. 3S.) The order of November 
ISth, 1644, enjoins those that bear arms "sliali have a suffi- 
cient coslet of clabboard or other wood in continual readiness." 
(Vol. I, p. 34.) The word "coslet" is evidently a misspelHng 
of corselet, denoting a breastplate or like defence against ar- 
rows. By order of May 6th, 1647, all were summoned to 
bear arms on the Sabbath. (lb, p. 46.) 

The order of October Sth, 1650, enjoining the frequent 
training of soldiers and choice of officers, shows the sense of 
impending peril. (lb. p. 67.) The direction in 1653 for dis- 
tribution of powder and shot, again indicates the presence of 
danger. (lb. p. 94.) In 1657 the town had been assailed 
and the assault repelled. The houses of Thomas Goldsmith 
and Mrs. HoweU were burned. (lb. p. US.) The contribu- 
tion to Goldsmith on account of this loss and ''the fire money" 



22 FIFTH SEMI-CENTE^'NIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

named in the deed of John Ogden, refer to the tax levied on 
the Shinnecock tribe, to compensa^te the inhabitants for 
their loss. (Tb. pp. 65, 1G7.) 

In 1655, at the meeting of the Commissioners of the United 
Colonies of New England, at New Haven, Capt. Topping, of 
Southampton, and John Young, of Southold, appeared with 
letters, &c., and urgently asked for powder and shot and aid, 
against Ninigret and the Narraghansetts. (See Plymouth 
Colony Records, Vol. X, p. 149.) The murder, by Indiana, 
at Southampton, was incited, if not perpetrated, rather by 
Narraghansett than Shinnecock malice. (lb. p. 9S.) 

The commission to Major Mason to go to Southampton 
with 19 men, &c., is dated May 15, 3 657. (See Conn. Colo- 
nial Records, Vol. I, p. 299.) The vote of this town of 10£ 
to Major Mason, March ]6, 1S57, "given him as a gratuity," 
evidently relates to the hostilities of this period and the de- 
sired aid of this old Indian fighter. (See Records, Vol. I, p. 
119.) Southampton and the neighboring towns of Southold 
and East-Hampton were all within the Narraghansett scheme 
of universal extermination of the whites, and devoted to des- 
truction. Lyon Gardiner, hero of Saybrook Fort, first Eng- 
lish planter resident of the state of New- York, and Wyan- 
dance, great sachem of Montauk, and finally of the wliole 
Island, were fast friends to each other and to the whites. It 
is not improbable that their aid alone saved these towns from 
destruction. The blood of the sachem has long been extinct. 
To the many descendants of the honored Island Pioneer, we 
express our tribute of grateful remembrance. Gardiner may 
have approved and controlled the choice of site for settlement. 
His prior residence, knowledge of the country and Indians, 
and friendship with Wyandance, would impel the locating 
company to consult him. The eastern shore of North Haven 
runs southerly in a line almost straight to the foot of Division 
street in Sag-Harbor, and thence to the ocean, marking, sub- 



ADDRESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 23 

stanfcially, the dividing line of the towns of East and South- 
ampton, and of the Montauk and Shinnecock tribes. If the 
friendship of the Indians could be attained, their hostility ap- 
peased or repelled, Gardiner wonld probably know. He 
knew that the waters, rolling without and within Southamp- 
ton swarmed with fish, that her forests abounded in game, 
that flocks of fowl hovered in the air, that her magnificent 
ocean plain was unsurpassed for the production of corn and 
/fn^its life-giviog summer breeze, that the outlook from the cliffs 
and headlands of her northern shore over her majestic Peconic 
Bay, was inimitable, and knowing would commend. 

THE TOWN HAS INTIMATE RELATIONS WITH NEW EK GLAND. 

In the enterprise of colonizing Long Island, the aspiring 
minds of New England men engaged with zeal. How the 
Captain of the vessel was a freeman in Lynn as early as 1636, 
and in 1638 Lieutenant of the artillery company. Edward 
Howell was a freeman in Boston, who removed to Lynn and 
owned five hundred acres of land there. In the order of the 
General Court of 22 October, 1644, there is reference to the 
ten acre lot of Mr. Winthrop, and eight acres which was ap- 
pointed unto Mr. Cole, of Hartford. (Vol. I, p. 33.) Win- 
throp was the referee chosen in the first Farret deed to fix 
the rent. James Hampton was from Salem. (lb. p. 130.) 
Appeals to the General Court at Hartford, were frequent, 
(lb. pp. S3, 84, 122, &c.) Delegates from this town went 
regularly to the General Court at Connecticut. (lb. pp. 119, 
Vol. II, p. 22.) Soldiers as Major Mason defended this town 
— soldiers from this town went to the Main. (Vol. I, p. 103.) 
Ministers from New England preached here. The like con- 
ditions, the like faith, similar purposes, pursuits, perils, 
thoughts, aspirations, predominated here as there. First of 
all and over all, was the same religious creed. Second and 
only second to that, was the like desire of great souls for po- 
litical freedom in larger degree. 



24 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

PURITAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 

Persecution confirms, consolidates and strengthens the per- 
secuted. All history shows that it defeats itself. The perse- 
cution of the Puritans in England is no exception. Organized 
for mutual help, they fled to Holland, to Plymouth and else- 
where. Disowning all priestly authority they chose their 
minister from their own numbers and at will they deposed 
him. The church was one of equals, holding all powers with- 
in itself; a pure democracy. The duty of bearing one an- 
other's burdens, of mutual aid, of universal love, was of uni- 
versal obligation. This theory, as they believed, derived and 
derivable from the Decalogue and the precepts of the Gospel, 
constituted every church an organic body, vitalized, perpetu- 
ated, controlled within itself. The logic of this theory of 
church organism and church constitution led to the like theory 
of civil government. Who could not see, that if within the 
church itself, independent of Priest or Hierarch or Ecclesias- 
tical d^jrfomination, by the equal suffrage of her members, 
ministers could be chosen, government instituted, order estab- 
lished, organic life born and perpetuated ; so in the colony or 
town, the suffrage of the people could organize government, 
create order, elect magistrates, enact laws. If within the 
church and by its suffrages power ecclesiastical was derived, 
the like powder in the state from the suffrage of the communi- 
ty was derivable. The eagle eye of Elizabeth, the learned in- 
stincts of the 1st James, the presentiments of the 2d James 
and both the Charles' had discerned danger to the throne in 
the prevalence of Puritanism. The antipathy was not un- 
natural and not unfounded. If language had not formulated 
the epigram, ^'a church without a Bishop, a state without a 
King," they understood the tendency of Puritanism, and ar- 
rayed their royal power to drive it from the earth as a foe to 
be destroyed. Puritanism was ever a foe to tyr^n^and des- 
potism, a friend to the people and their rights. 



ADDEESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 25 

TOWN MEETINGS. 

The political, organizing, governing genius of the Pioneers 
j^n^ conspicuously in their Town Meetings. This meet- 
ing was composed of that body of Freemen accepted as such 
by the voters themselves, and those only. It was required 
that a Freeman be 21 years of age, of ^'sober and peaceable 
conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion," and 
have a rateable estate of the value of twenty pounds. (See 
Baylis' History of New Plymouth, Vol. I, p. 230.) The suf- 
frage was limited but not so far as to prevent the government 
in the main from being the wisest expression of the popular 
will. Six Freemen and one Magistrate being present consti- 
tuted a quorum for business. (See Records, Vol. I, p. 8S.) 
This Town Meeting, called the ^'General Court," because in 
the first instance it tried important cases, above the Magis- 
trate's jurisdiction and heard appeals from their decisions, 
elected all town officers, and when convened for such electio; . 
was called a '-'Court of Election." (See Records, Vol. I, pp. 
76, 83, S6, 87, 105, 108.) Of necessity the meeting must 
exercise powers of the widest scope, comprising subjects do- 
mestic, foreign, civil, martial, military, commercial, religious, 
national, sovereign. At the commencement, in Jan. 1641, 
(p. 25) the powers of the General Court are defined, includ- 
ing power to ordain magistrates and ministers of justice, to 
punish offences, and execute the decrees of court ; "to make 
and repeale laws," to levy taxes, to hear and determine all 
causes, whether civil or criminal, &c. (Vol. I, p. 26, &c.) 
But even this definition was imperfect aud limited. Who 
could correct the errors of the Town Meeting except the 
town itself? "It's a far cry to Lochaw !" The colony swung 
free and solitary, as an orb in space, must control itself or fall. 
Practically it did so govern. If an unwelcome inhabitant 
sought to intrude himself into their community they would 
not accept him as snch. Whom they would they accepted. 



26 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOTTIIAMPTON. 

and whom they would they rejected. A power as sovereign 
as that of naturalization, they exercised without scruple or 
doubt, and often forbid the entrance of convicts and tramps 
into their community. No drone was allowed in their hive. 
No crime escaped its prescribed penalty. The Records 
abound in instances of exercise of the highest powers. By 
the terms of the Indian deed of 13th December, 1640, the 
grantees were bound to defend the grantors "from the unjust 
violence of whatever Indians shall illegally assail us." This 
league or alliance, agreed to in the purchase of the territory 
and made a condition, was binding or considered so on the 
town or Town Meeting, which made or authorized its Magis- 
trates to make regulations, rules, treaties or ordinances as a 
Sovereign Power dealing with the Indians. (See Records, 
Vol. I, pp. 22, 30, 37, 89, 90, 114, &c.) 

It is intensely interesting to study the workings of this 
town government, by Town Meeting. The meeting all the 
while assuming increasing power because the circumstances 
required it and because no power was near enough to be felt, 
to reverse its acts. If an inhabitant desired to sell his land to 
a stranger, unless allowed by the town, he could no more tlien 
invest an alien with title than he can now do so under our 
present law of escheat. The power of the Town Meeting 
over the town territory, to prevent transfer of title to a stran- 
ger or unaccepted unnaturalized inhabitant was exercised as 
absolutely then as now by the State. (See Records, Vol. I, 
pp. 25, 49, 78, 90, 111.) The Town Meeting, composed 
wholly of proprietors, regulated the inprovement, fencing, 
pasturage and division of lands. (lb. pp. 34, 38, 42, 76, 77, 
78, 79, 84, 85, 91, 98, 115, 129), imposed taxes, (lb. pp. 39, 
44, lis), directed the laying out of highways and labor there- 
on, the building and repair of bridges and sidewalks, (lb. pp. 
24, 53, 103, 114, Vol. II, p. 110.) It elected delegates to 
the General Court of Connecticut, (lb. p. 119), it provided 



ADDKESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 27 

for the settlement of estates of persons, deceased, (lb. pp. 64, 
65, 95, 109), it provided property inducements for the settle- 
ment of mechanics and ministers, (lb. pp. 81, 84, 102,) it or- 
dered a prison built, (lb. p. 37), it voted a bounty for the 
destruction of wolves and wild cats, (Eb. pp. 31, 85, 185), it 
commanded aid to be given to the miller to obtain a fall of 
water, (lb. pp. 7S, 94), it regulated trade with the Indians, 
(lb. pp. 22, 30, 60, 89, 90, 114), it controlled the whaling 
enterprise, (lb. pp. 23, 91), it prescribed a watch and ordered 
a watch house built, (lb. pp. 89, 164.) 

These are but a few cases of the exercise of power by Town 
Meeting, and could be almost indefinitely multiplied. At an 
early day our ancestors had acquired experience in the method 
of conducting this meeting. In the Record of July 7, 1645, 
we read this : ''It is ordered for the prevention of disorder in 
the Court that no person whatsoever, except the magistrate 
or magistrates, shall speak in any business which concerns 
the General Court unless he be uncovered during the tyme of 
his speech. And not to move or speak to any other matter 
until the former matter be ended. And that there be noe 
private agitation by any particular person to prevent the pro- 
ceedings or issueing of any matters. And whoso shall make 
default shall be lyable to paye sixe pence and the constable 
shall distress upon the goods of the offender and to present 
the said fines to the next General Court." 

Absence from the Town Meeting, or neglect to vote when 
there or refusal to accept office were punishable by a fine, 
(lb. pp. 23, 30, 76, 103, etc.) That government by the peo- 
ple might not fail, attendance at Town Meeting, voting there, 
and acceptance and service by an elected officer, were com- 
pulsory, neglect finable. The fathers permitted no shirking 
of duty. Their system was thorough. Let it not be thought 
that order cost no struggle. Sometimes the authority of 
magistrates and the town itself was ridiculed and defied. 



28 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENKIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

Even the most respected pioneers would be overcome by 
wrath to unjust expression. But if Thomas Halsey "obsti- 
nately hindered the time of the Court," if Henry Pierson, 
venerated name ! threatened if any man should strike his dog 
"lie would knock him down," if Arthur Bostic challenged Mr. 
Stanborough "to fight," and if Mr. Stanborough unlawfully 
"rescued a distress," the strong hand of the magistrates, and 
Town Meeting as a General Court, censured and fined the 
transgressor. The heavy arm of Justice, embodied in Town 
Meeting, fortified by public sentiment, irresistible by public 
approval, compelled the delinquent to submit to the sentence, 
and acknowledge his fault or pay the fine. All resistance to 
the will of the people was overcome. All individual defiance 
and disorder was crushed out. (lb. pp. 39, 401.) The Town 
Meeting moved with the momentum of the many and put 
down private and personal opposition. Fist law and shot 
gun law and chaos failed. Town Meeting reigned. Some 
of the most strong-willed, pugnacious, combative souls that 
first trod this continent, tried their individual strength against 
the collected will of the town. The beating wave no more 
moves the unshaken rock, than the individual wave of wrath 
moved the Town Meeting from its fixed position. The au- 
thority of government by the people for their good stood like 
a pyramid on its base, unmoved by all individual assault. 
The fiery chieftain whose pugnacity was a proverb in 1656, 
"for his unreverent carriage toward the magistrates, contrary 
to the order, was adjudged to be banished out of the town, 
and he is to have a week's liberty to prepare himself to de- 
part," &c. (lb. p. 112.) 

After this signal failure to resist or subvert the authority of 
the Town Meeting, resulting in the inexorable sentence of 
banishment, who could hope to overthrow an authority so 
firm, so invulnerable. If the Bull Rider of Smithtown failed 
to batter down the citadel of town authority, no one giant 



ADDRESE BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 29 

hand could do more. The American boy who remembers the 
Town Meeting of three and four score years gone by, its ma- 
terial and appetizing attractions, its atliletic sports, the col- 
lected might of the yeomanry, the exalted wisdom and dread 
majesty of the moderator, the imposing array of strength and 
numbers, the overcoming vote of the majority, the shrinking, 
dwindling vote of the minority; to him, the colossal propor- 
tions of Town Meeting as a vital political force in the public 
history of the town, is not fancied or unreal. The French 
writer DeT^queville, some half century since, philosophizing 
concerning this subject, saw Town Meeting from the undis- 
coyerable standpoint of France. Bryce, the late English 
writer on the American commonwealth, looking from the 
standpoint of the British Isles, saw through the splendors of 
the British throne . that original foundation political institu- 
tion known as Town meeting, and declared it ^'has been the 
most perfect school of self government in any modern country." 
(Vol. II, p. 27G.) To the born American, undazzled by the 
splendors of the throne, unaffected by the electric light of 
rank, living 

"Where none kneel save when to Heaven they pray, 
Nor even then unless in their own way." 

To him, the Town Meeting is the bed rock of American free- 
dom, on which her free institutions and the fair temple of her 
liberties were reared. Child of the people ! born in the wild- 
erness, cradled in peril, trained in hardship, surviving the 
challenge of disorder, the seductions of wealth, the arts of the 
demagogue, the frown of royalty, the cynic's sneer ; may it 
live forever ! the beneficent gift of America to the unborn 
millions of every age, of every clime. 

SOUTHAMPTON CONFEDERATES WITH CONXECTICUT. 

May 'iOth, 1643. the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
Connecticut and New Haven, with the plantations in combi- 
nation with them, adopted Articles of Confederation for thei 



30 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

mutual welfare and protection. (Palfrey's History of New 
England, Vol. I, p. 2G2, &c. Atwater's History of New Ha- 
ven, pp. lSl-2.) 

"March 7th, 1643-4, it was voted and consented unto by 
the General Court that the town of Southampton shall enter 
into combination with the jurisdition of Connecticit." (Rec- 
ords, Vol. I, p. 31.) The order of Town Meeting of June 
20th, 1G57, fixes the date when the town was received into 
the combination, as '^May 30th, 1645," (lb. p. 136.) The 
combination with Connecticut made Southampton not only a 
member of the colony of Connecticut but also a member of 
the general confederation of the four colonies. Thereby, 
while Southampton was bound to aid in defending Connecti- 
cut and the whole confederacy, they were pledged, with all 
their power, to aid in her defence. (Palfrey's History of 
New England, Vol. I, p. 263, &c. Atwater's History of New 
Haven, pp. IS 1-2. Howell's History of Southampton, p. 5.) 
The confederation was called "The United Colonies of New 
England." It was represented and spoke by two commis- 
sioners chosen from each colony. The internal affairs of each 
town an(' colony wore kft to their control. Question of "of- 
fence and defence, mutual advice and succor upon all just 
occasions, both for preserving and propagating the truth 
and liberties of the gospel, of their own mutual safety 
and welfare," were controlled by Commissioners repre- 
senting the colonies so leagued and and confederated. Ex- 
cept "the exigency constrained, one colony might not 
engage in war "without the consent of all." Except "by 
consent of all," no two members shall be united in one 
and no new members shall be received, (lb.) The ap- 
pointment of men, money and supplies for war, were to be 
assessed on the respective colonies in proportion to the male 
population, "between the ages of sixteen and sixty," and "the 
spoils of war were to be distributed to the several colonies on 



ADDRESS BY SON. H. P. HEDGES. 31 

the same principle." The .concurrence of six commissioners 
controlled, and failing this, the questions being referred to 
tiie general courts of the several colonies, the concurrence of 
them all was binding. The Commissioners were to meet 
yearly on the first Thursday in September, and oftener if oc- 
casion required, at places prescribed. The choice of a Presi- 
dent, the general policy of proceedings toward Indians, the 
return of fugitives from justice or service, the remedy for 
breach of the alliance by an offending colony — all these sub- 
jects were included in and provided for in the Articles of Al- 
liance and Confederation (lb.) Thus early on American soil, 
was instituted this first of all confederacies of the colonies, so 
complete in its anticipation of contingencies, in its conception 
of surroundings, in its adaptation to circumstances, that it 
endured assaults, external and internal, for twenty years, un- 
til tiie invasion and subjection of New Netherlands by the 
English, and the enforced rule of Royal Governors under the 
then Duke of York, in 16G4, afterwards King James the 2d. 
This league so complete in its extent, so just in its provisions, 
so wise in its principles, so practical in its policy, comprised 
in its scope the democracy of the Town Meeting, the repre- 
sentation of Towns in the Colonial Assembly, (called also the 
General Court,) the representation of the united colonies in 
the body of Commissioners. Seemingly com^/lcx, it was in 
in reality simple. Its machinery was well fitted for the work 
it had to do. 

In all local and town affairs the practical knowledge of the 
yeomanry of the town, assembled in Town Meeting, was su- 
perior to that of any non-resident, however wise. They 
knew their wants, their grievances, their interests, their 
ability and inability, their circumstances, and could best de- 
vise measures for relief or redress. The delegates of the towns 
composing the colony assembled as its legislature and highest 
court, representing the whole and every part of the colony, 



32 FIFTH SEMI CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 

could wisely legislate and decide for all. The Commissioners 
of the united colonies representing their union and clothed 
with powers that covered and only covered subjects of general 
concern, affecting the welfare and safety of all the so united 
colonies, could best legislate for the union. It is needless 
that I stop here to show that this machinery of government 
by towns, by colonies, by confederated states foreshadowed 
what was to come. The thought of the hearer outstrips the 
words of the speaker. Before the recital ends comes the 
flashing conviction that in the early history of these colonies 
the free institutions of this wonderful nation of the United 
States was born. The self-constituted government of South- 
ampton and other early settlements in their Town Meetings 
or general courts was an ancestral immunity transmitted to 
posterity out of which the modern Town Meeting was born. 

The delegates from all the towns in a colony assembled as 
its Legislature, to ordain and enact laws for the general 
good, and called the General Court of the colony, foreshadowed 
tiie stnte governments which were born of the colonies. The 
coiifcdnation and union of the four colonies of New England, 
including in ilu; colony of Connecticut the towns of South- 
ampton, East-Hampton, and afterwards Huntington and Se- 
tauket, predicted the coming union of the colonies and of the 
Independent States. By the laws of growth, by organic de- 
velopment, in modern scientific terminology by evolution, this 
transfiguration must transpire. The Provincial Congress 
must grow out of the Colonial Assembly. The Continental 
Congress and Confederation must grow out of the root of the 
New England confederacy and union. By a logic and a law, 
in politics as universal as simple, as immutable, as eternal, as 
the law of attraction, the one must precede and produce the 
other. At the time of this confederacy in the New England 
colonies, of which our town was part and parcel, the civil 
war was raffing in P^nsrland. The Lonor Parliament was sit- 



ADDRESS BY HON. H. P, HEDGES. 33 

ting. The first Charles was claiming as regal the same power 
which Parliament; under the British constitution, claimed as 
pre-eminently its own. The conflict between these two in- 
volved all the strength and energies of old England. New 
England unhelped, nncared for, unnoticed, must defend, pro- 
tect, pres3rve herself, or perish. Thus in 1G43, out of the 
necessities of the case, the impending peril so near, the far off 
absence and constrained neglect of old England, was born the 
union of the New England colonies. 

REPRESENTATION. 

Writers upon Representative and Confederated Government 
have sought by the analogies of the Achoean League, of the 
Grecian and Roman Republics, of the Swiss Cantons, of the 
Dutch RepubHc, of the Iroquois or six Indian allied nations, 
of Ecclesiastical and Church government, to derive therefrom 
the origin of the Government of these United States. Theo- 
ries these, all far fetched. Our magnificent constellation of 
republics and their union were born upon our own soil, nur- 
tured by successive generations of freemen, evolved from col- 
onial childhood and ''The United Colonies of Neiv England" 

CAUSATION. 

At the time of the Union the colony of Plymouth contained 
eight towns ; Massachusetts thirty ; Connecticut, including 
Saybrook and Southampton, six; and New Haven, including 
Southold, five. (Palfrey's History of New England, p. 275.) 
Forty-nine organized democracies, represented in four colonial 
assemblies, and all in the Commissioners delegated to act for 
the union, the seed corn which planted grew from ocean tu ^^iy~" 
ocean. It is improbable that the early colonists had any 
thought of an independent republic in voyaging over the At- 
lantic, or in their exile on its western shore. To Wiiithrop, 
compeer of our fathers, came the vision of a renovated Eng- 
land in America, enlightened, purified, spiritualized, domi- 
nated by loftier principles, aiming at higher results, moving 



34 FIFTH SEMI-CEMTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

towards a higher destiny. (lb. p. 110.) Independence, as 
an object attainable, and to be attained, came as the hard al- 
ternative of degradation and servility, postponed until forced 
to command regard. Sudden as the lightning flash it broke 
out of the clouds and storm of war, and the whole electric air 
of the continent felt its flame of fire. Yet sudden, and start- 
luig, and surprising, as was the battle cry of Independence, 
who can doubt that the long school of hardship^ the long ex- 
perience of Freemen in the government of their towns, the 
early estabhshment and maintainance of churches and schools, 
the training of their militia, the constant watch and guard 
against tiie savage, the conflict with the Pequot, and Narra- 
ghansett, and Mohawk, the wars with France and Spain, the 
siege and capture of Quebec and Louisburgh, the temerity 
and defeat of Braddock, the masterly retreat of the young 
Provincial Washington ; the whole antecedent history of the 
settlements on the western shores of the Atlantic, from Plym ' 
outh Rock, for over three half centuries, was but an augment- 
ing stream of causation that burst all barriers of thrones or 
dynasties, cast away all obstacles of Kings or Nobles, called 
for the reign of the people and that only. Even Franklin 
and other great souls, laboring earnestly for the redress of 
wrongs, like the prophets of old, unknowing the meaning of 
the revelations made to them, awoke as from the profound 
sleep of submission to the battle call for Independence. 

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 

The wave of the Revolution found the Town of Southamp- 
ton comparatively populous. The census of 1776 showing 
J, 434 people residing east ol the Watermill, and 1,35S west 
tlieieof All were animated by the burning spirit of Patriot- 
ism. All who were liable to military duty were enrolled, 
officered, organized, armed. The second regiment of Suffolk 
County counted nine companies of 7G0 officers and men, com- 
manded by David Mulford, of East-Hampton, Colonel, and 



ADDRESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 35 

Jonathan Hedges, of Bridge-Hampton, Lieutenant Colonel. 
East-Hampton furnished two companies, Bridge-Hampton 
two, Sag-Harbor and Bridge-Hampton jointly two, and South- 
ampton three. In addition to this the regiment of minute 
men commanded by Col. Josiah Smith, of Moriches, called 
from Southampton one company commanded by Capt. Zeph- 
aniah Rogers, numbering 61 officers and men, and another 
from Bridge-Hampton numbering 59 officers and men. Of 
these selected minute men, Elias Pierson, Corporal in Capt. 
Rogers' company, stood 6 feet 6 inches high, tallest of the 
tall. The relative importance of the county of Suffolk and 
the early history of its towns is shown by many facts, and 
briefly thus, ^^581 quota of Suffolk, 200 of Queens, 175 of 
Kings, 58 men to reinforce the Continental aimy at New- 
York, June 7th, '76." (See Onderdonk's Revolutionary inci- 
dents of Suffolk and Kings counties, p. 27.) The latest re- 
search shows that the whole force of Eastern Long Island 
was engaged in the disastrous battle named from the Island 
whereon it was fought. Thereafter very many joined the 
Continental army, and the defence of the people and stock on 
Long Island required the presence there of every available man. 
The subsequent military occupation of the Island by the Brit- 
ish, broke up the regiments organized or organizing by the 
Americans there. Time fails to tell the story of that armed 
occupation. Who can photograph the depression of defeat, 
the confusion of the fleeing, the consternation of the defence- 
less, the quartering of hostile troops, the extorting of supj'lies 
by the British, the destruction of supplies by Aniejicans, each 
grasping to starve the other and thereby starving the people, 
plundering by the lawless of both, insults of the brutal, the 
provoking exultation of the foe, the sullen submission of the 
subjugated, their fears for the safety of absent friends fighting 
for freedom on land and sea, defeats of the American army 
magnified, their victories belittled, every aspiration for inde- 



36 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

peiideuce answered by the raven cry "Nevermore." If the 
amenities of Gen. Erskine sometimes let in a gleam of light, 
the barbarities of Major Cochrane soon transposed darkness 
for light. For seven years after the battle of Long Island her 
patriot people endured the blighting scourge of the conqueror, 
tlje gnawings of unsatisfied hunger, "the pinching hand of 
poverty," the shivering, vi^intry blast, the horrors of hope de- 
stroyed ; seven vials of wrath poured out upon her inhabitants 
and he r soil. W ashington said that Long Island furnished 
)f all placesj)the earliest and most correct intelligence of 
moveinents^oTthe foe. Not until Evacuation day were the 
pent-up patriot passions of this people released from the hy- 
drauhc pressure of British power. No town in the old 
thirteen states welcomed Independence with a louder shout 
than Southampton. 

CELEBRITIES. 

Nor is this town undistinguished by men whose names have 
been illustrious. Is a councilor wanting in 1665 ! Capt. 
Thomas Topping of this town is chosen. Is a speaker re- 
quired for the Assembly in 1694? Henry Pierson of this 
town is chosen. Does the great city of London in 1773 re- 
quire a High Sheriff to repress disorder and execute decrees 
of courts? This town supplies the officer in the person of 
Stephen Sayre, a native born citizen, friend of Franklin, friend 
of freedom. Does the Empire State demand a chancellor to 
preside over its High Court of Equity ? Nathan Sandford, a 
native of this town, is appointed thereto. Does the old coun • 
tv of Suffolk summon her selectest sons to preside over her 
courts ? What town but Southampton can furnish in succes- 
sion judges like Hugh Halsey, studious, upright, learned, or 
Abraham T. Rose, eloquent, gifted, accomplished. For three 
successive Presidential campaigns the village of Bridge- 
Hampton supplied tlie successful candidate for elect^^^ii, in 
IS40 Gen. Abraham Rose, in ] 844 Judge Hugh Halsey, in 



ffV 



ADDRESH BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 37 

1848 Judge Abraham T. Rose, each actually voting for the 
elected candidate. Does Japan seal her ports against all 
Christian intercourse and commerce ? Mercator Cooper, 
master mariner, stem of the old Southampton stock, rescues 
from starvation and death twenty-two Japanese, and in 1845 
boldly eni,ers the prohibited port and returns them to their 
native land, bearing in his mission of humanity at the mast 
head of the whaleship Manhattan, the stars and stripes, (ex- 
cepting the limited Dutch traffic) the first Christian flag that 
floated in Japan air, the first Christian ship that entered a 
Japan port, the first Christian master who dare defy the na- 
tion's sentence of exclusion. What shore so desolate? what 
solitude so secluded ? what island so remote, that the ships of 
Sag-Harbor have not visited ? In all her long history the 
sons of Southampton have upheld her honor, in the sphere of 
adventure, of music, of painting, of the arts, of learning, of 
legislation, of the legal, the medical, tne ministerial pro- 
fessions. 

THE puritans' MERITS. 

Let it not be said that the theme is hackneyed, that lan- 
guage has acquitted itself in proclaiming the sublime self-de- 
nial, the heroic fortitude, the Spartan courage, the devoted 
patriotism, the steadflist faith, the fervent piety of the Fathers, 
that art has paid its debt in monuments of magnificence to 
commemorate their virtues, that learning has meted its full 
measure to perpetuate their remembrance. Neither language 
nor learning nor art can adequately express the lofty ideal 
they attained ; the self-consecration they made. Early in 
the dawn of historic light, the patriarchal characters stand out 
like giant profiles ; masterly types of personified virtues, 
priest and prophet, sage and lawgiver, hero and bard, at long 
intervals succeed each other. It was not inappropriate that 
the pen of Jehovah should outline the perfected piety of 
Enoch, the persevering obedience of Noah, the un/^serving hi ^, 



38 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

faith of Abraham, the unfalterhig trust of Job, the great lov- 
ing heart of Joseph, the lofty patriotism of Moses, the resist- 
less valor of Joshua, the superhuman strength of Samjison, 
the strategy and songs of David. 

These great spirits gave for their posterity and for the race 
their utmost in word, in deed and life. The long self-denial, 
the unfailing patience, the undoubting faith, the stern justice, 
the high resolve, the pure patriotism of our fathers, seem 
allied to the greatest and first-born of the sons of earth. No 
mere human words, no monuments of art, no expression of 
human learning, however exalted and however graceful, will 
exhaust the subject or overpay the debt humanity owes to 
the founders of the infant colonies of this transcendently great, 
free and happy nation. Let music sing its highest harmonies^ 
let eloquence attain its loftiest utterance, let painting portray 
its most exquisite lines, let statuary unfold its grandef^t con- 
ception, let monumental art lend its perfected ideal, let poetry 
breathe its seleccest sentiment, let piety consecrate her purest 
offering, and then, ah, then, the light that shines from the 
Pilgrim's tomb, the song his soaring spirit sings, the senti' 
ment his life made real, shall be more radiant, more elevated, 
more pure, than all expression of art, of music, of eloquence. 
Since the founders of this town first landed on its shores, eight 
generations have come and gone. The innocence of infancy, 
the joy of youth, the vigor of maturity, the decay of strength, 
the decrepitude of age, the inevitable end, have chased each 
other. On this fleeting hour, and on us now living, has de- 
volved the sacred duty of celebrating this day, and commem- 
orating the memory, the history, the solid worth of our an- 
cestors. Standing over the crumbling consecrated dust of 
eight generations who have followed them, as wave follows 
wave, the solemnities of the occasion are severe. To the ears 
of their dying came the ocean's moan ; with the ebbing of its 
tides their lives went out j over their burial place sounds its 



ADDRESS BY nON. H. P. HEDGES. 39 

unceasing requiem roar. Inheriting their names, receiving 
the fruit of their toils, depositors of their fame, entrusted with 
their free institutions, children of their affection, guardians of 
their graves, let us cherish their achievements ; let us treasure 
their traditions ; let us preserve their principles ; let us honor 
their memory ; let us transmit, unsullied and unimpaired^ our 
bright inheritance to succeeding generations. 

One of our own untiring antiquarians has recorded the tra- 
dition, that at the first landing of the Pioneers one of the 
number, a woman, said : "For conscience sake, I'm on dry 
land once more !" This expression of a past disquiet, of a 
present gratification, is impressed upon the spot, which from 
that day to this has borne the name of "Conscience Point." 
Name not inappropriate and not unknown to the Argonauts 
of Southampton. For •'conscience sake" their fiitherland is 
forsaken. For "conscience sake" they crossed the stormy 
ocean. For "conscience sake" they suffered and they toiled. 
In all her long career, inscribed on the banner that floated 
over Southampton, that streamed in her pure air, that signi- 
fied her ruling motive, that impelled her to action, was writ' 
ten her watchword, "Conscience." No insignia of rank, no 
emblazoning of heraldry, no bearings armorial, no symbol of 
command, so appropriate and so true. Till time shall end, 
till the earth shall be dissolved, till "the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat," let her watchword be unchanged. Aye! 
in that grand concurrence of the Nations called by the Arch- 
angel's trump to hear the eternal equities, inscribed on her 
banner, may there be nothing more unworthy than her own 
glorious countersign, "Conscience." 

As if responding to the utterance of the mighty shades of 
of the dead, let us live as they lived, let us look as they long 
looked for the coming triumphant march of their principles. 
Burdened with the weight of years, your speaker in this pub- 
lic utterance, (possibly his last), cannot forget the generations 
vanished, the mutability, the mortality of all humanity. 



40 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAIi OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

"A few more ntorms shall beat 
On this wild rocky shore, 
And we shall be where storms shall cease, 
And surges swell no more." 

Nor will we forget the cheering promise our history por- 
tends. Rescued from all perils, triumphant over all foes, un- 
divided by all differenceSj you, with me, will look forward to 
advancement of the nations, to the progress of humanity, the 
elevation of mankind ; you with me will say : — 

"Hail ! to the coming singers ! 
Hail ! to the brave light bringers ! 
Forward I reach and share 
All that they sing and dare. 
The aii'S of heaven blow o'er me ; 
A glory shines before me 
Of what mankind shall be, 
Pure, generous, brave and free. 
A di'eam of man, and woman 
Diviner, but still human, 
Solving the riddle old, 
Shaping the age of gold ! 

The love of God and neighbor ; 
An equal-handed labor; 
The richer life where beauty 
Walks hand in hand with duty. 
Ring, bells in um-eared steeples, 
The joy of unborn peoples ! 
Sound, trumpets far off blown ; 
Yovu* triumph is my own ! 
I feel the earth move sunward, 
I join the great march onward. 
And take by faith while Hving, 
My freehold of thanksgiving." j . • 



The natives of the east end of Long Island made frequent visits 
to New Amsterdam, Hartford, and sometimes as far north as 
Boston. On the 2-4th of May, 1645, the Sachem of Shinnecock, 
Witaneymen, with forty armed Indians, appeared before the 
Director and Council of New Netherland, at Fort Amsterdam, 
Manhatten Island, and offered their services. Therefore he and 
his Indians were permitted to embark in one of the Company's 



ADDEESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 41 

vessels and were sent up the Hudson river to discover the Lidians 
who were then at war with the Dutch. Having discovered their 
whereabouts, he was to attack them, and to return, when he 
would be rewarded as he deserved. This duty he performed, and 
five days later brought in the head and hands of one of the 
enemy. Wittanymen is the Sachem, called in the East-Hampton 
deed of 1G48, Nowedonah — the "seeker." It is probable that he 
derived this latter title from the above fact, that he was to spy 
and to seek out the enemies of the Dutch, who were Indians liv- 
ing about Esopus Creek. The Indians frequently changed their 
names from similar haj^penings in their lives. On the same day, 
(May 29th, 1645) havmg shown what he could do, Wittanymen 
again appeared before the Council of New Netherland, declaring 
to be empowered by his three brothers, to mt : Rochkouw, the 
greatest Sachem of Ahaquatuwamuck (Shelter Island and parts 
adjacent), Momoweta, Sachem of Curchaug, and Wyandance, 
Sachem of Montauk, and stated m his own name, as well as in 
that of his brothers that they had taken under their protection 
the villages named Unkechaug (on Mastic Neck, Brookhaven,) 
Setauket, Secatogue, (Neck at Ishp,) Nissequogue (a locaUty on 
the river of the same name,) at which place the Mattmecocks then 
resided, and Rockaway, and requested to walk in friendship. 
The Council promised them peace and protection as long as they 
and the villages named, remained in theii- duty. These 47 armed 
Indians, were probably not all from the Shinnecock tribe, but 
were culled from the bands ruled by the foui- brothers. (Col. 
His. N. Y. Vol. XIV, p. 60.) 

The year previous (1644) the brothers, with Yoco or Rockouw, 
at their head appeared before the Commissioners of the United 
Colonies of New England at Hartford, on the same errand, and 
asked for a certificate of protection, which was given them. 
(Plymouth Col. Records, Vol. IX, p. 18.) 

That both the Dutch and English considered it policy to pro- 
pitiate the Indians of Long Island in every way that lay in their 
power, is amply proven by many of the early records. In 1647 it 
came to the notice of the Council of New Netherland that the 
Sachem of Massapeag m what is now South Oyster Bay townshij?, 
had excited, by gifts, some Indians to war against the Dutch and 
EngHsh, and that they were resolved to destroy the English at 
Hempstead, while they were in theii- fields harvesting, to which 
plot the chief of Curchaug (Southold town,) Momoweta and his 
brothers at Montauk, Shinnecock and Shelter Island had agreed. 
Although the Dutch considered this an idle report of the English, 
they believed it to be of sufficient importance to send Sec'y Van- 



42 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

Tienlioven, wlio understooJ the Indian language, in a sloop to the 
east end of Long Island to enquu-e of the chief Momoweta of 
Curchaug, whether the report be true or not, and to present the 
chief and his brothers with three cloth coats and some trifles. 
This record from the Dutch archives seems strange when we 
consider the proximity of the English settlements, but the fact 
remains that at this period harmony did not prevail between the 
nations and the settlers. At this time the Shinnecock Sachem 
and probably most of the tribe were residing on the north shore 
at or near Sag Harbor. (Col. His. N. Y. Vol. XIV, p. 79.) Even 
as late as 1G75 Gov. Andros wovild not permit the Indians of 
Rockaway, Unkechaug and parts adjacent to assemble at Seca- 
togue (West Islip) for a Kintecoy, "to sing and to dance," and 
du'ected the constable of Huntington to take away their arms and 
to order the Sachems to proceed to New- York to meet the Gov- 
ernor. (Col. Hist. N. Y. Vol. XIV, p. 709.) 

Complaints were frequently made against the Dutch, Avho at 
that period, as well as to-day, were born traders, eager and gTeedy, 
for the sldns, wamjDum and other commodities that were prodviced 
by the red men and procured by easy barter. This greed often 
led them into waters not under their jurisdiction, thereby causing 
trouble and annoyance to the English settlers who found their 
red neighbors in possession of implements of war, obtained in 
some way unknown to them, thus becoming a constant source of 
worry and anxiety to the simple tillers of the soil. The following 
is the result of a complaint from the town of Southampton 
against Govert Loockmans, of the sloop Good Hope ; he m oiUm 
mentioned in the Dutch records. On Sej^t. 28th, 1G48, two 
sailors appeared before Cornelis Van Tienhoven, the Secretary 
of New Netherland, and declared it to be true that they had been 
in the months of October, November, 1647, with Govert Loock- 
mans in his bark along the coast from New Amsterdam, Pehehe- 
tock, (Peconic) Crommegouw, (Gardiner's Bay) and New Haven, 
during which voyage they did not see^ nor even know that Loock- 
mans himself, nor any of his crew, had du-ectly or indii-ectly, 
traded or bartered with the Indians, there or elsewhere, any 
powder, lead or gims, except that he made a present of a poimd 
of powder to the Chief Rochbouw in Gardiner's Bay, and bought 
two geese "from him, and half a deer at Pahetoc, (Peconic or 
Pehik-konuk, probably Indian Island, Eiverhead town. It means 
a "small plantation or village'') with powder without having 
given or exchanged anything else. — (Colonial History N. Y. Vol. 
XIV, p. 94.) 

The complaint is referred to in a letter from Gov. Eaton, of 



ADDKESS BY HON. H. P. HEDGES. 43 

New Haven, to Gov. Stuyvesant, at New Amsterdam, dated May 
31st, 1648, as follows: 

"Janiia. the 3d, 1G47, a complaint was brought from the 
Eughsli att Southampton, that Govert Lockoman had bynne 
latelie trading with the Indians of those ptes, who reported that 
after he had sould them some coates he declared that if they 
would buye more, with everie coate hee would giue a pound of 
powder, which pcured him a quicke markett and soe furnishes the 
Indians with powder that they could sell to the EngHsh ; and the 
same Indian further testified that Govert wisth them to cutt of 
the English and the Dutch (to such a worke) would furnish them 
with peeees, powder and shott enough, wch soe provokes the 
Engl, at Southampton, that had they order they would have 
ptaide Govert and his vessell." — Now Haven, Col. Records, Vol. 
I, Appendix p. 524. 



/ 



ADDRESS BY GEORGE ROGERS HOWELL 



Ladies and Gentlemen: A few days after I received the 
courteous invitation to take part in the exercises of this occa- 
sion, I wrote to Judge Hedges, who deservedly was chosen as 
orator of the day, inquiring what was to be the theme of his 
address, inasmuch as I did not wish to be in danger of select- 
ing by accident the same subject for m)?^ own remarks. You 
shall judge if I did not receive a characteristic answer. **If a 
whale," said he, "should swim in the ocean from Wainscott 
to Seatuck in the forenoon, in the afternoon four more whales 
would find the ocean left and could swim the same. So you 
will find in the afternoon the ocean left." 

Now as it really happened, my caution was justified. If I 
had not done this, one whale would have been grounded. 
For, after casting about for a theme, I had concluded to make 
prominent the theory that our national republic had been the 
natural outgrowth of the early Southampton Town Meefino;. 
But I feel sure that this question or theory has been the more 
ably treated by one who has had the benefit of a legal train- 
ing, and of whose attainments and judicial fame the town and 
county are justly proud. His familiarity with the law indeed 
is such that I doubt not his earnest advice to his neighbors is, 
always to keep entirely out of it, and to settle their disputes 
over a glass — of lemonade. Perhaps the best thing I can say 
for his perspicacity is in matters theological. If the system 
of marking in the schools were carried out in manhood, in all 
the various relations of life we should have to give him the 
perfect mark, save one. In church doctrine, by his superior 
spiritual insight, he has been all his life heterodox, until at 
last the church has caught up with him and made him ortho- 



ADDRESS M GEORGE R. SOWELL. 45 

dox. As his modesty is equal to his worth I will spare his 
blushes and proceed. 

The celebration of the day, among other things, furnishes 
opportunity to commemorate the settlement of the town and 
to consider the character ot our ancestors. In rearard to the 
first I have but little to say. My labors in this field are al- 
ready in print. According to that old manuscript that I migJd 
have found in the old writing desk of my grandflither, and ac- 
cording to other and abundant evidence, two hundred and 
fifty years ago to-day, then or thenabout, the first ship-load 
of Englishmen with their wives and children to found a colo- 
ny in the State of New-York, was landed at North Sea, or 
Cold Spring Harbor. They were here in June, and in time 
to raise a crop of Indian corn, barley, beans, pease, turnips, 
and pumpkins. Potatoes were not known to the world until 
more than a hundred years later. Their numbers were con- 
tinually increased by accessions of families. The rapidity of 
the colonizing is clear from a comparison of the names of the 
signers of the articles of settlement and of the list of watchers 
on the beach for whales in March 1G44-5. Of the twenty 
signers in March 1639-40, only six remained as settlers, and 
of the fourteen who thus intended to come, most never came 
at all, or removed during the first year. On March 7th, 1644- 
45, we find 2T additional family names not on the list of 
signers before mentioned, and all or nearly all of these were 
probably married men. Of these 27 additional names eleven 
men with their families left the plantation to become the 
founders of East-Hampton, in 1348. In the list of March 
1648-49 or 1649-50, we find eight other flmiil} names added 
to the settlement. Thus it grew by steady gradual accessions 
and by the natural growth and increase of population. ' For 
many years in the first cei?tury of its life it was the second 
town in population, weulth, trade and importance, in what 
now constitutes the state of New- York. The county courts 



46 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

were held here. It is the only town on the east end that is 
found on many of the early maps, even after the settlement of 
Southold and East-Hampton. Cargoes of whale oil were 
shipped directly from Southampton to London. Later on, to 
be sure, a number of other towns either grew up or sprung 
up, such as Brooklyn, Buffalo, Albany and Rochester, whose 
population according to the last census is somewhat greater 
than that of Southampton. But, a rediscovery of the town 
about 1877 by some wealthy navigators, or other citizens of 
New-York city, has resulted in making the village a second 
Newport. It was a creditable discernment on their part, as 
a more genial summer climate, or a more healthful or lovelier 
villafire it would be hard to find within two hundred miles of 
the metropolis of America. What it is to-day needs no words 
of mine to delineate. It lies before you. It certainly is not ij 
the sleepy hollow of my boyhood days, and if it be a summer 
resort, it is a matter for congratul)/tion, as it grows fairer to d-/ 
the eye with its elegant residences and ^green lawns, no ' 
drunken brawls make night hideous, but the ocean lulls to 
repose, a village whose denizens have earned a rest by honest 
work of hand and head. But we must be retrospective to- 
day. We must call up in imagination, as best we may, our 
ancestors and ask ourselves what manner of men and women 
they were. What had they in common with us ? On what 
points do we touch them and they us ? Are they to-day 
nothing but names and intangible shadows ? Let us apply a 
test. Do we sympathize with them, or have any feelings in 
common with them, when we mention railroads, the tele- 
graph, or Browning or evolution. No. Unless their gaze 
has swept down on the earth and followed the march of the 
race, these are meaningless words to them. But ask them, 
did you love the Christ ? Yes, .they say, and our hands are 
grasped in quick sympathy. They are our brothers and sis- 
ters as well as our ancestors. Ask them again : Do you love 



ADDRESS BY GEORGE R, HOWELL. 47 

man ? '^Yes, yes ; see what from scanty means we raised to 
redeem Christian captives from Algerine slavery." Did you 
love your country ? "Let the soldiers who went from our 
midst to defend the remote borders of the north from the rav- 
ages of the French and Indians answer. Let another genera- 
tion of our patriots in the revolution tell you the story of their 
marches and battles and the sufferings of Valley Forge." Ask 
them still once more : Did you love your wives and children ? 
"Did we love them ? For them we left our English homes 
to brave the perils of the ocean, and the unknown dangers of 
the wilderness, to found a shelter for them and to transmit to 
our children both lands and liberty." 

Here, then, we find, in all the essentials of true manhood, 
grounds of sympathy full and perfect. John Cooper, Christ- 
iopher Foster, Thomas Halsey, James Herrick, Edward How- 
ell, Richard Post, Thomas Sayre, John White and others are 
then no longer mere names — they are strong sympathetio 
men, laying the foundations of a new republic and doing their 
work well. They were puritans. Of late years there has 
been, I think, an attempt to draw too great a distinction be- 
tween the Pilgrims and the Puritans. The so called Pilgrim 
fathers came hither from Holland in 1620 and settled Plym- 
outh and the surrounding country. Up to their union with 
the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1692, they o;ily numbered 
13,000. The fiercest and most unrelenting of the Indians 
lived far to the south of them, beyond the Puritan settlement 
of Massachusetts Bay, so that their situation saved them from 
the wars of self-defense waged by their sister colony. It has 
been said that they learned religious toleration from the Dutch 
during their residence in Holland, and that in their dealings 
with the Indians they were less cruel, and with other religious 
sects they were less intolerant than their Puritan neighbors. 
It must be remembered that they also were Englishmen, 
smarting no less than the Puritans under persecution at home. 



48 FIFTH SEMI-CENTEKNIAL OF SOTTHAMPTON. 

Their residence in Holland was but ten or twelve years, and 
that time was certainly too brief to change their character, 
and for one, I doubt if the Dutch was at that time the nation 
to teach toleration, when for twenty-five years in Albany the 
same Dutch people did not permit public worship by any 
denomination except their own. In religious doctrine and 
church government the members of both colonies yre Presby- LArty 
terians and Independents, living, not as some have described 
them, as cats and dogs, but in good harmony together. 

The movement for greater religious freedom in England 
began under the teaching of Wiclif in 1378. His translation 
of the Bible into the. English language sustained the new 
doctrines, and the reading of the same vrrsion, revised later 
by Cranmer, carried on the good work. The people were on 
fire for knowledge of the word of God and for a public wor- 
ship in their own tongue, without ritual. The potentates of 
the English churchy then severed from Rome, resisted the 
inovemcn!: and burned the Bibles. Under the protection of 
tii<; reformation on the continent the printing presses of Ger- 
many Hooded the market with English Bibles, which were 
bouglit by the nui ( li.iiits of London, and by them dissemin- 
ated throughout England. Under the short reign of Edward 
the VI., the movement flourished, and the hopes of the Lol- 
lards, as the reformers were called, grew brighter. The ac- 
cession of Mary the Saturnine hghted the fires of Smithfield, 
and checked the advance of the reformers. Under the long- 
reign of her sister Elizabeth, persecutions ceased and the 
reformation was firmly established. As the years went on 
from the dawn of the English reformation, the cause gradual- 
ly but surely advanced. Like a rising tide, while there is a 
constant backflow of the waters, yet each incoming wave 
creeps up a little higher than the last. Under the Stuarts 
came the high tide of Puritanism, — but, to drop the figure, 
there was then no room for them longer in England. " No 



ADDRESS BY GEOKGE R. HOWELL. 49 

bishop, no king," said James the First. " Unless they con- 
form," said he again, "I will harry them out of the kingdom." 
And so they left their native land to found a church without 
a bishop, and a country without a king. So flir as royalty 
and its complicated supporters in church and state were con- 
cerned, there was also a relief. A disturbing element was 
removed. People who think for themselves are apt to dis- 
turb tyrants. And then, there came from the distant colonies 
a steady stream of gold from taxation, from the sale of lands, 
and from trade. Puritanism 2000 miles away was also more 
easily tolerated, and shocked no man's sensibilities. But 
these men, these Puritan colonists were terribly in earnest. 
They had a rugged theology, born of their history, and the 
central idea of their government was a theocracy, and God 
was their king. In our day only has the idea of the great 
fatherhood of God been made prominent. They had always 
lived under kings, and in their minds God was but a bigger 
king. As evidence of this, note the preface to the code of 
laws under which the Southampton colonists lived during 
the first four years of the settlement while they formed an 
independent republic. " An abstract of the lawes of judg- 
ment as given by Moses to the commonwealth of Israel, soe 
farre foarth as they bee of rnorall, that is, of perpetuall and 
universall equity among all nations, especially such where 
the church and commonwealth are complanted together in 
holy covenant and fellowshippe with God in Jesus Christ, 
being jointly and unanimously consented unto by the inhabi- 
tants of this colony of Southampton." With all tlic'ir laults 
the Puritans were the best men and women the world had 
ever seen. Their principles M^ere not for sale. They were 
unsafe men to attempt to bribe. They weie just men and 
carried out their idea of justice in the minutest details of life. 
The possible vagaries and mental obliquities even of dogs and 
little pigs were subjects of legal enactment. They bad a 



50 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

high sense of justice and in some things at least, a liberal 
spirit. Witness how in their articles of agreement they de- 
clared that no man should '' claim any exclusive interest in 
seas, rivers, creeks or brooks howsoever bounding or passing 
through his grounds, but freedom of fishing, fowling -and 
navigation shall be common to all within the banks of said^lWlAa 
whatsoever." They recognized the old principle of English 
law that the fish running wild in the waters, and the game 
in the forest, were the property of him only who caught 
them. They allowed a margin even for the improvident man 
to secure a dinner if he could and would, from the common 
storehouse of nature. 

I have said that they were the best men and women the 
world had ever seen, [f you doubt it, search all the records 
or the past for better types of manhood and womanhood, and 
you will search in vain. But I believe their descendants are 
both better and superior to them in many ways. We have 
in the main inherited and practice their virtues. We may 
have a mild belief that those who differ in opinion from our- 
selves are cranks or old fogies, yet we do not persecute or 
even tithe them. We would not if we could. We have 
good authority for holding charity to be the greatest of 
christian virtues. That flower of Christianity blossoms best 
in a land of liberty^ and was reserved for our day and is to 
some extent an evolution of our free institutions. The char- 
ity I mean includes toleration and every grade of kindly 
feeling from mere benevolence to a universal mighty love for 
the brotherhood of man. I cannot stop to elaborate this. 
This charity is not perfect, but it is abroad in the world and 
growing daily. I have marked its growth in my own life- 
time. I picture to you a scene that was once witnessed 
doubtless by some before me. A good woman died in this 
village within a month of her 78th year. The relatives and 
friends were gathered to pay the last rites of earth to the 



ADDRESS BY GEORGE B. HOWELL. 51 

deceased. She had lived a pure sweet life, her soul filled 
with charity and her life with good deeds. But her name 
was not on the roll of the visible church. Years and years 
ago some peripatetic revivalist visited the east end of Long 
Island and frightened two generations with his denunciations 
of those who dared enter the church without certain and 
sure evidences within their souls of their personal faith and 
holiness. Abashed by the terrors awaiting those who might 
unworthily partake of the communion, she never dared to 
confront the session, but lived along, indulging a secret hope 
in the savior of an invisible church. The mistaken soul who 
did the alleged preaching at her funeral, confined, as he was, 
in the straight jacket of a medieval theology, consigned her 
to everlasting flames and held up her example as a warning 
to the unrepentant. Now I say no such ghastly scene is 
possible in this church to-day. We are wiser and better than 
our Puritan ancestors in that we have a broader charity and 
more trust in the father-love of the Almighty. We recognize 
elements in the problems of life and morals that they either 
did not perceive, or if they did, they refused to take into ac- 
count in their estimate of human character and responsibility. 
Inherited tendencies for good or evil, the circumstances and 
environment of early life, all of these contribute largely to 
the formation of character, and for not one of these is a man 
or woman personally responsible. A man is the result of his 
antecedents modified by his environments. Let me men^ 
tion one other point in honor of our ancestors. The degree 
of civilization of any country is measured by its treatment of 
its women. They came from a country where wife-beating 
was common, and where it is legally permitted to this day, 
when in the judgment of the husband correction is needed. 
But I do not remember to have seen a single case in the 
American history of the Puritans where this brutal treatment 
was ever imposed on a woman. The fact is, the men saw 



62 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

their wives and mothers and sisters bravely accepting the lot 
of colonists, performing cheerfully their duties with a dignity 
and self-reliance thac won their respect. For obedience with- 
out discussion, there came to the wife a responsibility with- 
out limit. The women grew equal to the demands upon 
them. Their facile fingers wrought the little ornaments, and 
their fertile brains susrarested the little comforts that made the 
first rude houses into attractive homes. They were the in- 
tellectual efjuals, and in devotion, often the superiors of their 
husbands. As the years went on, instead of losing this hon- 
orable position, the women of the country won still higher 
honor. European travellers in America about the time of 
the revolution write of their surprise at the attainments and 
the brilliant conversation of the women they met in public 
assemblies, surpassing the female leaders of society in the 
capitals of Europe. When at a brilliant assemblage of the 
President and high government officials and foreign ministers 
at Philadelphia in 1790, the English minister said courteously 
to Senator Tracy, of Connecticut, "Your American women 
would be admired even at St. James." " Yes, I have no 
doubt of it, — they Lire admired even at Litchfield Hill." 

Our ancestors have been charged with vanity in perpetu- 
ating, or their friends for them, their titles, military, civil or 
ecclesiastic on their tombstones. Why not ? All the world 
does it and always has done it. The epitaphs of European 
cemeteries show more titled names than are found in the 
official blue-books fresh from the printing press. Why should 
not these sturdy captains and good deacons be recognized on 
the mortuary tablet! Why should any one grudge them the 
honors which their virtues, their integrity and their intellect 
had won for them from their fellow men ? Who calumniates 
the oak for towering above his fellow ? Let the little oak 
push up, if it will, the sky is broad and there is room enough 
for all in the upper heights. 



ADDRESS BY GEORGE R. HOWELL. 53 

Southampton people have done their work in the world, 
and have passed on. Their descendants are in half the states 
of the union, and are generally among the most intelligent 
and substantial citizens of the state in which they live. Has 
the town furnished any great men in the history of tne na^ 
tion ? What is greatness, anyhow ? How do you measure 
it ? Events, circumstances beyond their control^ and oppor- 
tunities make so called great men. Furthermore, great men 
are like objects in a fog, — the nearer you approach them the 
less like giants they appear. I believe you may duplicate 
the heroes of our five wars on land and sea, in every State in 
the Union. There are Hampdens and Sidneys in every vil- 
lage. It was not Corliss alone who made the great engine 
that Gen. Grant set in motion at the centennial exhibition of 
1876. Knowledge is cumulative, growing like a big snow 
ball rolled in soft snow. It took 6,000 years and 500 gen- 
erations back of Corliss to make the work possible. But, it 
is moral greatness, after all, that carries the brightest light 
into the other world and there receives the greater honor. 
And high moral worth has no sex. Among women there are 
moie martyrs now living than have ever died at the stake. 
Let it be remembered to-day, that for moral heroism, for all 
in human character that is worthy of our respect and admira- 
tion, our foreniothers are in no whit inferior to our fore- 
fathers. 

As to success in accumulating wealth, — you remember 
Bunyan's man with the muckrake. He stepped down from 
the highest plane of manhood, he lost sight of the beauty and 
glories of the world, and the satisfaction of benevolence and 
the sacred ministrations of charity, but, — he raked up the 
dollars. Observe a group of boys playing with their marbles. 
One has half a dozen, another a score, and another a hundred. 
The latter may have used the muckrake or he may have in- 
herited them. What matter I You a man look at them. A 



54: FIFTH SEMI CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 

farm absorbs your cares — that means a larger horizon, pro- 
vision for yourself, your wife and children. The interests of 
a family or a community are interwoven with yours. Or 
you are engaged in still larger enterprises, or making laws 
for States, or defining the policy of nations. Do not the 
marbles seem a very trifling affair, fit only for children 1 
Now turn to the works of the Almighty, see the million 
forms of organic life, all interdependent, growing up under 
mysterious laws, perpetuating themselves and dying to make 
room for others, — is there not here a field for a reverential 
student's devotion ! Study the globe itself, a mausoleum of 
whole races of living creatures and unfamiliar vegetation, and 
you will find you need many lifetimes to read its history. 
Point your telescope to the heavens and watch the march of 
suns and constellations into distance beyond distance, with 
other planetary systems traihng in their wake, many or all 
inhabited by intelligent beings, — and the boys with their 
marbles, and the man of the muckrake appear to shrink in 
value and importance. And what is this world, or all worlds 
compared to a good man or a good woman ? The worlds 
will perish^ — they are even now occasionally snuffed out of 
existence, — but the children of God live, live, live. And 
these are the men and the women who for eight generations 
have been going up higher from your midst. The question 
is answered. They are now great, beyond all earthly greats 
ness^ these Puritan ancestors of Southampton. 



/ 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU, 



Fellow Citizens of Southampton : 

When our esteemed friend, Mr. George R. Howell, was 
about to prepare his address, he wrote to the Hon. Henry P. 
Hedges to inquire as to the principal points of his oration, 
in order that they might not trespass on each other's ground. 
He received the characteristic reply, '^ If a whale from Ama- 
gansett meets another whale coming from Seatuck, they will 
both find plenty of room to swim." That letter was in this 
case our salvation. It seemed to say, ''play the part of a 
little fish and take good care not to get in the whale's way." 
When one whale meets another in our vast ocean, they pass 
by in silent majesty, but if they meet the little fish, — the 
little fish finds himself inside the whale. Jonah was a great 
man and he left an immortal name, but I would not go 
through his experience to be called a prophet, even in my 
own country. With this in view, I very willingly yield to 
my honored associates the field of eloquence and theory, and 
content myself with the simple facts that make up history j 
being comforted by the consoling thought that little fish can 
swim where great whales would certainly run aground. 

Returning to our native town after a lengthened absence, 
we feel like a son (I trust not the Prodigal) returning to his 
father's home. And all the villages that we have known so 
long and so well — Bridge-Hampton, Sag- Harbor, North 
Haven, Sagg, Good Ground, Atlanticville, Quogue, West- 
Hampton, Speonk, Eastport, Flanders, North Sea — South- 
ampton welcomes you all. 

The stranger who visits this ancient town, cannot fail to 
notice first of all, the solid and substantial nature of the 



66 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 

dwellings that remain as relics of the clays when the settle- 
ment was in its infancy. Houses still exist that sheltered 
men who could remember the dawn of our history. One, 
the oldest of all, has passed its two centuries of existence, 
and with care and attention may see another. We once 
asked a practical carpenter why it was, that people in the 
olden time used such immense timbers when half or a quar- 
ter of the size would answer the purpose. His reply was, 
that timber was plenty in those days and they might just as 
well use it as not. There is a much better reason than that. 
During the past few years it has been our fortune to reside 
in various portions of the State. Not like the ordinary 
traveler who passes through on a railroad train, stops at a 
hotel, looks around for an hour or two and thinks he has 
seen the whole ; but living long enough in each particular 
locality to gain a kuowledge of its history and of the inner 
life of the people. In one section we noticed with surprise 
the very inferior character of all the old buildings. Every- 
thing built previous to the early part of the present century, 
if made of wood, was sure to be in the last stages of dilapida- 
tion, and if built of stone there was an unmistakable air of 
cheapness about it. The first impression was that they must 
have been built by a poverty-stricken class of settlers who 
could afford nothing better. A more careful examination 
showed an entirely different reason. That entire section of 
country was embraced in an immense land grant covering 
thousands of acres, and formerly owned by one of the famous 
historical families of the State. The arable portion of this 
land grant was divided into farms of two or three hundred 
acres each, and leased to tenants on life leases, leases for one, 
two, and sometimes three lives. Now here was a system of 
land tenure based upon the most uncertain of all contingen- 
cies, the duration of human life. The man who took the 
\ease and built his house had, of course, no assurance as to 



ADDKESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 57 

how long he might enjoy it, and the lives that came after his 
were equally uncertain. Accident or disease might cut them 
short at any moment; an epidemic might extinguish the titles 
of half a neighborhood, and as the three lives were sometimes 
running simultaneously, the time at best could not be very 
far in the future when the land would revert to its original 
owner. Occasionally a man would sell his lease with the im- 
provements ', this was invariably done at a loss, for the time 
that had elapsed took away just so much from the sum total, 
and besides there was the element of uncertainty, which was 
a most important item in the calculation. The natural result 
was that anything that looked like permanent improvement 
was very carefully avoided. Houses and buildings of all 
kinds were put up as cheaply as possible, and without the 
slightest regard to durability. If they lasted their time, it 
was enough ; beyond that they had no care. In a region 
where fruit trees will grow with a luxuriance and produce 
with an abundance, which we, accustomed to Southampton 
soil and Southampton climate cannot understand, it required 
tlie most stringent clauses to be inserted in the leases, in or- 
der to compel tenants to set out orchards, the benefits of 
which they would be almost certain to enjoy. 

Now, when we come to Southampton, we find an entirely 
different state of things. From the very earliest settlement 
down to the present day, every man owned his laud in fee 
simple absolute. When a man built his house he did it, not 
only with the assurance of enjoying its shelter while life to 
him remained, but with an equal assurance of transmitting it 
to his descendents, or if he wished to dispose of it, he was 
equally certain of obtaining a fair valuation. Now, when we 
look upon these ancient houses with their massive frames and 
solid covering that has withstood the storms of two centuries, 
it is not "because timber was plenty and they might just as 
well use it as not," but because the men who built them 



58 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

knew that they were building for posterity. Timber was 
just as plenty in Ulster County as in Southampton, and stone 
was infinitely plentier, but here there was every inducement 
for permanent improvement; and there, there was no induce- 
ment at all. 

What was true of this place was equally true of all the 
New England settlements^ and had no small effect in determ- 
ining the character of the people, and if there is any trait that 
has marked the people of the east end of Long Island in the 
past, and in the present, and we trust will continue in the 
future, it is stabiHty. 

The first settlers broughL with them all the customs and 
modes of thought and action to which they had been accus- 
tomed in their native land. Men may change their locality, 
but in all other things they do not change ; the truth is that 
wherever a man goes he carries himself with him, and tne 
same peculiarities and habits that mark him m his native vil- 
lage will mark him at the North Pole or in Central Africa. 
Perhaps this is what the Ancient Poet meant when he said : 

"The skies above us change, but we change not," 

and, 

"What exile from his country can flee himself as well?''' 

Most of the early settlers of East-Hampton were originally 
dwellers here, and their separation and departure is the first 
event of importance in our history. Most of them appear to 
have come from Kent, while those who remained were prob- 
ably from Yorkshire and the adjoining regions. The individ- 
ual members of the two settlements do not appear to have 
been connected by the bonds of relationship, and from that 
time forth they formed two distinct colonies. Considering 
that East-Hampton was the nearest settlement, it is surpris- 
ing how little communication there was between the two 
places during the colonial period, and the separation has been 
quite as complete in later time. It is difficult to imagine a 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETEEAU. 59 

town more completely isolated from the rest cf the world, for 
a period of several generations. If the comm-inication with 
East- Hampton was little, that between Southampton and the 
next western settlements in the town of Brookhavet: was still 
less. A long journey through a dense forest separated them 
from Setauket and the Manor of St. George, and the Patent- 
ship of Moriches. Between the inhabitants of the two towns 
there was neither relation or acquaintanceship, and the occa- 
sions when they came in contact were few and far between. 
On the south there was the barrier of the mighty ocean, while 
on the north the wide bay which, in contradistinction from 
the ocean, they called the "North Sea," (a name perpetuated 
by a village on its shores), separated them from the equally 
early settlement of Southold. Within these narrow limits the 
Colony grew and flourished, the sons and daughters of the 
settlers intermarried, and in the early part of the last century 
there was scarcely a family which was not more or less closely 
connected with the rest. The natural result was a fellow 
feeling of sympathy, based on the well known principle that 
"blood is thicker than water." The few who went away did 
not materially decrease their numbers. The few who came 
from abroad soon made the manners, customs and mode of 
thought of the new home, their own, and so for a long series 
of years they formed a typical community, apart from all the 
world, and where 

"Far from the madding crowds' ignoble Btrife, 
Theii- humble wishes never learned to stray. 
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life 

They took the noiseless tenor of tlieii" way." 

In such a community permanence of customs would be the 
rule, and changes the exception, and any important change 
would come from causes outside of themselves. 

We have said that the founders of the towns brought with 
them the ideas and modes of thought to which they had been 
accustomed in the old country. One of these was the respect 



(){) PlfUti SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOlTTSAMtTON. 

for lawful authority, which had been impressed upon the 
minds of so many generations of Englishmen that it had be- 
come a second nature. During the Cew years that Southamp- 
ton was a government by itself, the General Court, consisting 
of the freemen of the towns, elected all officers, and to these, 
the people readily and without reserve, transferred the respect 
and obedience which they had so long been accustomed to 
yield to the officers appointed by the British Crown. It 
should be noticed that no new officers were made. The of- 
ficers with their titles and their duties were precisely the 
same as those to which they, and their fathers before them, 
had rendered obedience, and honored as standing in the place 
and representing the authority of the King. The highest of 
these in tlie new settlement were the Magistrates, the Cons- 
tables and the Captain of the train band. To the first of 
these as Justices of the Peace, honor and respect has been 
justly given through all the long period that has elapsed since 
the founding of our town down to the present day, and the 
office for two centuries and a half has been filled by men who 
have commanded the respect and esteem of their fellow citi- 
zens, from their innate worth, integrity and nobility of clmr- 
acter, as well as from their official position. But it would be 
curious indeed to trace the office of Constable from the time 
when it was the highest office in the town, and sought for 
and held by the best citizens, down to the present day, 
when it is not always easy to find a suitable person wil- 
ling to accept the position. It was a high office when the 
town was independent. It was higher still when under the 
dominion of the Duke of York ; the ''Court of the Constable 
and Overseers" was the highest tribunal of the town and the 
Constable was the head of this tribunal. No wonder then 
that the most prominent citizens were appointed to the office. 
He was on a level with the minister, which was saying a 
great deal in those times. A curious illustration of tiiis is 



ADDEESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 61 

found in the record of the laying out of Hog Neck in 1680 ; 
when it was expressly stipulated that no man should sell his 
lot to any one "who was not approved of by the minister 
and the constable." Now Hog Neck (or North Haven as it is 
now called) has a pretty respectable class of inhabitants, but 
we greatly feai that if this rule were enforced, some would 
find it necessary to move to the Sag-Harbor end oi the bridge. 
In those days if the pulpit was vacant and a new minister re- 
quired, the Constable would be considered a very proper 
person to send for one. It would hardly be thought so now. 
He was probably the only civil officer who wore a uniform, 
and carried a sword as part of the insignia of his office. Little 
by little in after years the powers of the office were lessened, 
and upon the formation of counties the Sheriff succeeded to 
the power and dignity that the constable had once enjoyed ; 
and though, at the present time, the office in this town is 
filled by good and worthy men, yet they cannot be said to 
derive much honor from their official positions. 

While our neighboring town of Southold was founded with 
the avowed intention of strictly uniting Church and State, 
our own town was not founded on any such plan. From the 
statement in the Agreement of the first settlers, or "under- 
takers" of the plantations, "that when it should please the 
Lord to add to their number men who should be fit matter 
for a Church," they would submit to them "to be, or not to 
be, received as members, according as they should perceive 
the work of God to be in their hearts," we should conclude 
that the founders of the town were not Church members. 
However that may be, it remains certain that when it might 
seem as if all their time and labor would be fully required in 
prepareing homes and shelter for themselves, the minister and 
the Church were provided for first of all. From that time 
until after the Revolution the minister, without exception, 
was in all social matters, the foremost man in the community, 



62 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOTTHAMPTON. 

He was the only man of liberal education and this, in itself, 
placed him far beyond the rest, for learning was scarce, and 
valued accordingly. A comfortable home was provided, and 
the stipulated salary always promptly paid ; small as it might 
seem now, it was large in proportion to the means of the 
people, and ample for the wants of the times. 

As the Church and the minister have ever formed so im- 
portant a portion of the social life of our community, any 
attempt to describe the social changes of the past, which 
would not be largely devoted to them, would certainly fail of 
its object, for there is nothing that shows in so marked a 
manner the contrast between the past and the present. When 
the Rev. Samuel E. Herrick, D. D., whose eloquence has 
charmed us all, and to whom no one has listened with greater 
pleasure than myself, had arrived at the ripe and matures age 
of nine years, and was consequently fully competent to grap- 
ple with all the problems of life, he communicated to us his 
grand plan for getting rich. He assured us that "as soon as 
he was a man" he intended to start three businesses at once, 
and be a shoe maker, a store-keeper and a minister. His 
plan, wliich \\v. cNi.l.iiiied with much earnestness, was to have 
a store w iih a shoe-maker's bench at one end. When there 
were no customers to wait upon he could make shoes, and on 
Sundays, when, of course, he could neither make shoes nor 
*"tend store," he could preach. Circumstances, it seems, 
have prevented him from carrying out two-thirds of this in- 
genious scheme ; but the other third has been accomplished 
with such marked success that we can readily pardon the 
omission of the rest. But the curious part of it is that there 
was a time in the history of Southampton when such a 
scheme, which might now seem so ludicrously impracticable, 
was not only perfectly practicable, but actually put in prac- 
tice. All of our early ministers had the use of the Parish 
farm, and cultivated it with their own hands. Rev. Sylvanus 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 63 

White, who was identified with this town and parish for a 
greater length of time than any other pastor, was born in 
1704; graduated at Harvard in 1723 ; settled in Southampton 
as minister in 1726, and, after an unbroken pastorate of bt> 
years, died in 1782 ; his mind not enfeebled by age. Of all 
that he must have written during his long career, it is pass- 
ing strange that not a scrap remains, except his Day Book of 
accounts, which, fortunately, still remains, a most interesting 
relic of the past. {Sec note A.) Every item of income and 
expenditure appears to be entered in a most methodical man- 
ner, and aftbrds abundant data for estimating the cost of sup- 
porting a family of prominence and respectability. To this 
we will allude more at large when we come to speak of the 
changes in family life. In addition to carrying on his farm, 
he kept a boarding school on a small scale, aid taught a few 
boys, sons of wealthy and prominent men, in this and the 
neighboring towns, the elements of the Latin language. Min- 
ister White could say with the utmost propriety and the 
strictest truth, "I am a flirmer, a school-teacher and a minis- 
ter ; during week days I 'farm it' and teach boys Latin, and 
on Sundays I preach." It would be difficult to find any radi- 
cal difference between this plan, actually carried out, and 
the one that existed in the youthful mind and vigorous 
imagination of his eloquent and talented successor. This plan 
of uniting pastoral labors with manual work, continued till a 
comparatively late date. When the Rev. Mr. Babbitt came 
to Southampton in 1816, he was (without having learned a 
trade), a mechanic of no mean ability. His wife was a skilled 
tailoress. Neither of them hesitated to earn an honest dollar 
by these means 5 and this, in connection with the fact that 
board was two dollars a week, explains the fact that he was 
able to lay up money on a salary of Three Hundred Dollars a 
year. {See note B.) Times have changed (o such an extent 
that any such arrangement, at the present day, would be de- 



64 ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU, 

rogatory to both minister and people. One of the greater 
changes in connection with pastoral life, is in the nature and 
amount of personal intercourse between minister and people. 
This, in the old times, was of the closest kind. The pastor 
was the personal friend and acquaintance of every person in 
his extensive parish ; the counsellor of the old ; the adviser of 
the young ; the assistant of the widow 5 the protector of the 
fatherless. From the cradle to the grave, their lives and ac- 
tions were his care and solicitude. When books were few, 
and of newspapers none, the sermon was remembered and 
discussed during the week, with an earnestness that cannot 
now be realized. Ministers' sons were always supposed to 
set a good example to godless youth ; and their wives and 
daughters were always expected to be the visitants of the 
sick, and the comforters of the afflicted. It would be better 
for all concerned if we had not left these things behind. 

We have spoken of books as being few ; they were few 
iiid( eJ ; and it is very characteristic of the times that, previ- 
ous to the Revolution, a very large proportion of them were 
religions works ;ind volumes of sermons were more numerous 
than uU others TIkjsu were generally published by subscrip- 
tion, and contained at the end a list of the subscribers. 
Benjamin Franklin was a free thinker, but more than half the 
books he printed v^^ere rehgious works. A few volumes of 
history were owned by fortunate persons ; these were care- 
full}'' studied, and to say of any one that he was a ''well read 
man" was a mark of distinction. A college education was 
something very rare. In the burying ground at Sagg there 
is a moss grown tombstone with the inscription "Here lies 
the body of Mr. Henry White, Student of Yale College, who 
died May 5, A. D., 1748, in his 23d year." {See note C.) 
The fact that he was a student being considered of sufficient 
importance to record in that lasting manner. When Capt. 
John Wick died in 17 J 9 he made provision in his will that 



FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 65 

one of his sons should be sent to College, and sets aside a 
certain amount of property for that purpose, a sum which 
would not be sufficient to defray six months' expenses at the 
present time. Notwithstanding the veneration in which 
learning was held, very little money was spent on schools till 
within the last fifty years ; and what little was spent, was 
done grudgingly and, to use the common expression, "came 
like drawing teeth." There never was a time when it would 
not be twice as easy to raise money to build a new Church, 
as to build a new school house. The wretched shanties that 
passed under the name of school houses, and the last of them 
has very recently disappeared, were sad exemplifications of 
that fact. To fully understand the reasons for this requires a 
careful study of the inner life of people in the olden times. 
Our first settlers came here and found a wilderness to conquer. 
All their time and labor were required to gain a living ; their 
homes, their clothing, their food were of the plainest kind, 
and, from the day they landed till long after the Revolution, 
there was not a man or woman in Southampton who did not 
earn their daily bread by their daily labor. The class, now 
quite numerous, who, fike the lilies of the field "toil not, neither 
do they spin," have only existed here for a very few years. 
Every thing was done by hand ; their food, their clothing, 
the tiling of the soil, and the making of the tools with which 
their daily work was done ; every thing was performed by 
manual labor ; a day's labor meant from early in the morning 
till sun down ; and, as for woman's work, that was never 
done. A few generations spent in this manner, and work 
became a second nature. To work was considered the natural 
lot of all ; to say that one was a "hard-working-man" was 
high praise ; whether he made anything by it was of much 
less consideration. Under these circumstances, anything that 
interfered with work, and called a man or boy away from it, 
was looked upon with suspicion. When the first settlers 



66 ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 

came here they brought minister and Church with tliem. 
Connected, as they were, with all their hopetj of the eternal 
world, they became part and parcel of themselves, and were 
as necessary as the breath of Hfe. The minister must be sup- 
ported, no matter how hard they might toil ; the Church 
must be built at any sacrifice ; but schools and education were 
looked upon, either as luxuries they could do without, or as 
necessary evils. It was considered necessary tliat a boy 
should learn to read and write, but the time spent in learning 
was just so much tai\en from farm labor. It was not con- 
sidered necessary that a girl should learn these things , the 
large number of women who made their marks, when signing 
Deeds, is ample proof of this. The pay of the school master 
was small, even for those days. In 1694 Mr. John Mowbray 
engaged "faithfully to teach ihe school in Southampton" for 
six months for 12 shillings per scholar ; he was guaranteed 
twenty-two scholars, which would make his salary about 
Forty Dollars, and he boarded himself. It would be curious 
to compare the school of those diys with that of the present 
time. The first qualifications of the school master was to be 
a good penman. The autographs of some of them are to be 
seen among our Town Records, and their complicated flourish- 
es must have excited much admiration. Beyond this, Httle 
was required, except a fair knowledge of arithmetic. His 
salary was increased by small sums for writing Deeds and 
Wills, and he would assist the Town officers in settling Town 
accounts. The school books were very few in number, but 
we know that slates and spelling-books were used in the 
middle of the last century and they cost two shillings, six 
pence apiece. Boys who studied arithmetic had a bhmk 
book, in which "sums" were carefully copied, after having 
been wrought out on a slate. It seems to have been the pride 
of a good scholar to have a neat copy-book. Some of these 
we have seen, with examples illustrating all the rules of the 



FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 67 

arithmatic, especially the '^Rule of Three," or, as it was then 
called on account of its supposed importance, the ^'Golden 
Rule," which is now superseded by the more rational process 
of analysis. Geography and grammar were only studied by a 
few; and if any were ambitious to go beyond these, they had 
to employ the minister as a private teacher. 

And speaking of geography reminds us of the wonderful 
changes of the last century. Prior to the Revolution there 
was no Western country. After that, the "West" meant the 
middle of the State of New- York. To the next o:eneration, 
the "West" was the Ohio region. When the oldest persons 
present were boys, the "West" meant Illinois and Indiana, 
and the Mississippi was the boundary of an unknown land. 
When the middle aged were children, the "West" was Kan- 
sas and Nebraska. For the children who now throtig our 
schools, the circle has returned to its beginning, and there is 
no "Western country." 

Next to the minister and the school master comes the doc- 
tor, for the former were here long before the latter. For long 
years after the settlement, there appears to have been no phy- 
sician in town. A "Dr. Craig" is once mentioned, but he 
certainly was not a permanent resident. Families then "doc- 
tored" their ailments with domestic remedies. It was a part 
of the duty of a good hourewife to lay in a good stock of 
herbs at the proper season. "Yarb teas" of all kinds were 
given in cases of sickness; and, if they did no good, they cer- 
tainly did no hurt. It is quite a question whether many of 
these herbs were not brought with the first settlers from 
England, with the traditional knowledge of their efficacy. 
Some of them are never found, growing wild, far from the 
haunts of men. However this may be, each plant had, in 
their idea, a peculiar good quality. Catnip was "soothing to 
the nerves." Indian Posy "good for colds." Comfrey was 
"strengthening." Boneset (which is certainly indigenous) 



68 ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAIT. 

was "good in fevers." Skunk Cabbage (the first flovver that 
blossoms) was used for rheumatism, but never cured it ; nor 
did any other of the thousand-and-one remedies for that pain- 
ful complaint. The first physician who appears to have set- 
tled here was Dr. John Mackie, who was here previous to 
1736 ; he died in 1758, and of his medical practice we have 
no knowledge whatever. Succeeding him came Dr. Wilham 
Smith, son of Nathaniel Smith, Esq., who owned a very large 
estate at Moriches ; he first came to Southampton as scholar 
to Rev. Sylvanus White, in 1742 ; (see note D) he studied 
medicine in Philadelphia, and settled here in 1751, and re- 
mained until his death, 1775. His son, Dr. John Smith, was 
physician here for many years, but the real successor? of Dr. 
William Smith were Drs. Henry White and Silas Halsey ; 
the latter removing to the western part of the State after the 
Revolution. Of a doctor's practice, during the latter part of 
the last century and the early part of the present, we have 
a very full knowledge from the account book of Dr. White, 
which is still in existence. If the present physicians followed 
their scale of prices, we could almost afford to be sick. 
Phlebotomy and cathartic medicines, or as he expressed it in 
much plainer English, "bleeding and a purge," was the be- 
ginning, the middle and the end. No matter what the dis- 
ease might be, a purge was the first remedy they administered. 
His prices certainly were moderate ; a visit in the vicinity 
was one shilling ; for a visit at more than a mile distance, 
three shilHngs ; and four shilling for going in the night ; a 
visit to North Sea would be five shillings ; and if he stayed 
there all night, and furnished medicines, it would be nine and 
six pence; it would be seven shillings to Seth Squires at 
Squiretown ; and eight shillings to Wakeman Foster's at Pon 
Quogue ; and the same to Red Creek. A visit, with paregor- 
ic, cost 'Squire Herrick (a near neighbor) two shillings, and 
for three visits, with spirits of nitre, he charged three and six 



FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 69 

pence ; a visit to Wickapog in the night, with castor oil and 
paregoric, was ten shillings. He made a good many visits to 
Mr. kSamuel Jagger's, at Long Springs, at three shilHngs each. 
His son, Sylvanus, made a good many more, but he got a 
wife by them. The fee for extracting a tooth was one shil- 
ling ; a 'Spurge" was one shilling four pence -, an emetic the 
same ; also a dose of rhubarb. Two visits to Shinnecock 
with sundry medicines, cost some Indian twelve shillings ; a 
visit to North Sea, with bleeding thrown in, was four shillings. 
A large part of his pay was taken in barter and days' work. 
At one time he gets a load of sea-weed for a visit with the in- 
evitable "purge"; and again, he brings home a fine bass, at 
a cent-and-a-half a pound. We have no doubt but that his 
successors in the profession would be glad of such a chance 
occasionally. In one instance a wealthy family at North Sea, 
for divers visits and doses, had run up a bill of nine pounds, 
seven shillings and six pence ; this was paid in what the doc- 
tor, very justly, calls "sundries," and includes apples, flax, 
wood, pears, timothy seed, beans, clams, fish, eels, pigs, water- 
melons and geese. Plis accounts show that all the medicines 
he used were of the very mildest kind ; and it is doubtful if 
they ever killed or cured. If the patient recovered, the 
doctor had the credit of it ; if he died, it was charged to 
Providence. 

When Dr. Smith wished to replenish his stock of drugs, he 
saddled his horse, fastened his saddle-bags and started for 
New- York. The end of the first day found him at Patchogue, 
where he "tarried" at the tavern over night. The next even- 
ing found him in the City, which then extended almost to 
Canal Street. Having accomplished his business, he started 
on his return ; and Saturday night found him safe at home. 

There is no word, once in such general use, and occupying 
so large a share of public attention, that has so completely 
fallen into disuse, as the word ^'Tavern." At the present 



70 APDBESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETKEAU. 

time, every house of entertainment, no matter how meager 
its accommodations or limited its capacity, rejoices in the 
title of "Hotel." Most of our social changes came gradually, 
but this came all of a sudden. The word "Hotel" was im- 
portedfrom France about the beginning of the present century. 
It found its way into the Dictionary in 1S06, and was defined 
as "an inn for genteel people." 

This, at once, accounts for the change. Between the tav- 
ern keepers in any village there was an intense rivalry. Each 
one thought that Ms Inn furnished the "best accommodations 
for man and beast." His house was the one for "gentlemen" 
to stop at on their travels. As for the lower class, the place 
for them was "the tavern across the way," or "down the 
street." 

When "Hotel" was introduced as an "Inn for genteel peo- 
ple," each one was convinced that his house was just the one 
that answered that description, and the sign was changed ac- 
cordingly. The neighbor, who entertained precisely the 
same idea concerning his own establishment, promptly fol- 
lowed suit, and "Taverns" quickly became obsolete. 

When Rip Van Winkle waked from his twenty years' sleep, 
one of the changes that astonished him was to find that Nich- 
olas Vedder's "Tavern" had vanished and Jonathan Doolittle's 
"Union Hotel" was in its place. 

We may state that, in the old times, the charge for horse 
and man, over night, with meals, was three shillings. 

On a cold winter's day the tavern fireplace (for there were 
no stoves in those days) would be a very comfortable resort. 
The well known story tells us of a half frozen traveller who 
on coming in and finding every seat in front of the fire occu- 
pied, and no chance to thaw himself, loudly called out, "Host- 
ler, give my hoise a peck of oyster shells." When the curious 
crowd had gone out to see the horse devour this new kind ot 
provender, the traveller comfortably ensconced himself in the 



FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OP SOUTHAMPTON. 71 

warmest corner, and when the hostler reported that the horse 
refused to eat them, calmly said, "then give him his oats." 

The minister, the school master and the doctor have been 
for long years among us, but the lawyer is a modern intro- 
duction. When Rev. Dr. Dwight, of Yale College, travelled 
through Long Island in the early part of this century, he re- 
ports thiit no lawyer had ever yet been able to get a living in 
Suffolk County. But times have changed, (some say for the 
worse), and the legal profession is now prominent, and its 
individual members appear to be prosperous. One day, when 
this century was young, there was a boat on the shore of Me- 
cox Bay and some oysters in it. There was also disputed 
ownership, high words, a quarrel, a fight, a suit for assault 
and battery : all these followed in natural and rapid succes- 
sion. The defendant hastened to Abraham T. Rose, then just 
fledged as a lawyer, and ready to defend injured innocence, 
for a consideration. The suit came off in Southampton before 
Squire Jonathan Fithian, then a young Justice of the Peace. 
With the eloquence that in after years made him the bright 
and shining light of the Suffolk County bar, the young lawyer 
pleaded the cause of his client so successfully that the jury 
brought in the verdict '^not guilty." Th»; over-joyed but un- 
sophisticated client promptly sought his counsel and asked his 
fee, and was told Two Dollars. "Two dollars ! Heaven and 
airth ! Why, here I have to take my hoe and hoe corn all 
day long for fifty cents, and you just come here and stand up 
and talk two hours, and charge two dollars. I'ts outrageous, 
and I won't pay it !" "Very well, what will you pay ?" 
The client's hand went down into the depths of his trousers 
pocket, fished out an eel skin purse, and taking fifty cents 
tendered it as the "fair thing." The young lawyer accepted 
it and both adjourned to Herrick Rogers' bar room, where it 
was quickly exchanged for "liquid refreshments," of which 
the client had a full share, and that was the end of the first 



72 ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PBLLETREAU. 

lawyer's feet hat we have any account of in this village. Now 
doctor's disagree, and ministers dispute, but lawyers will al- 
ways stand by each other, and I do not suppose there is a 
member of the legal fraternity present but will declare by his 
faith in Blackstone, that two dollars pay for two hours talk, 
was a fair and reasonable charge, and the service well worth 
the money. 

We cannot conclude this part of our discourse without of- 
fering our slight tribute to the memory of a man who in his 
day found few that could equal him, still fewer to surpasss. 
In the northern part of Bridge-Hampton there is still standing 
a farm bouse of the ancient kind, that has endured for more 
than a century in its plain and homely solidity. In the vil- 
lage of Flushing, there is a mansion, one of the most magnifi- 
cent erected in this country prior to the middle of the pres- 
ent century. When we saw there the doors of solid mahoga- 
ny, the walls, floors and pillars of polished marble, it seemed 
indeed as if one there might "dream that he dwelt in marble 
halls" and wake and find his dream a reality. Such was the 
birth place, and such the dwelling place, in the after days of 
his glory, of Nathan Sandford, Chancellor of the State of New- 
York, and Senator in the Congress of the United States. 
Like too many in high stations he builded the palace unmind- 
ful of the sepulchre, and the home with all its magnificence 
has long since passed into the hands of strangers. {See note 
E.) It is no injustice to the dead, nor disparagement to the 
living, to say that Chancellor Nathan Sandford was the most 
distinguished and eminent man ever born within the limits of 
the town of Southampton, and of his greatness and his fame, 
his native town, his native county and his native State may 
well be proud. 

The changes in social and family life are so closely con- 
nected that it is sometimes difficult to determine in what class 
certain changes should be placed. It might seem to some 



FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 73 

that an old account book would be the dryest acd most un- 
interesting reading that could well be imagined, yet from 
these almost all our facts are derived. The Day Books of 
Rev. Sylvanus White, Capt. Elias Pelletreau and his son John 
Pelletreau, form an unbroken series, from the early part of the 
last century down to a period within the remembrance of peo- 
ple now living. They tell us the prices of labor and all the 
commodities used and dealt in at that day. They tell us what 
was high and what was low. What was in daily use, and 
what was seldom used, what were considered necessaries and 
what were luxuries. In fact a complete picture of family life 
can be drawn from them. The most remarkable of all changes 
has been in the price of labor. For a period of 100 years the 
wages of a laboring man were 3 shillings a day or 37 J cents. 
It is perhaps unnecessary to state that until the Independence 
of the United States all accounts were kept in pounds, shil- 
lings and pence, or the English currency. Even after the 
new order of things, when a Federal currency of dollars and 
cents had been established, old people still clung to what 
they had learned when boys, and had always been used to, 
and kept their accounts in pounds, shillings and pence to the 
end of their lives. The pound was two dollars and a half, 
the shilling 12 J cents, and the penny a triffle more than a 
cent. The Spanish dollar was 8 shillings, and this is our 
unit of value. The reason why wages were so low, and re- 
mained so for such a lengthy period, was owing to the fact 
that there was no diversified industry, the whole community 
was engaged in farming, and there was nothing else for un- 
skilled labor to do. The old adage says, ''where all shovel 
and hoe, wages must be low." On the other hand everything 
produced by the community was also low, for there was no 
outside market, and the supply was equal to the demand, and 
generally in excess. Still more remarkable has been the 
change in the price of female labor. During all the long 



74 ADDKESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 

period we have mentioned, a woman's wages were one*shilling 
or 12^ cents a day, and young .girls who could not do a full 
day's work, had less. As a shilling a yard was the price paid 
for weaving flannel we might conclude that a yard was a fair 
day's work. A man hired by the month had 7 dollars and a 
half, and a man could be hired to work a year on a farm for 
22 pounds, or 55 dollars. In the early part of the present 
century wages were 4 shillings a day. As late as 1S17 the 
wages of a hired girl were 5 shillings, or 62^ cents a week, 
and up to the time of the war a dollar a week was good pay. 
The price of a shilling a day for women's work continued till 
after the Revolution. In 1814 it had risen to one shilling 
and sixpence. In 1832 the wages of a v^'oman for cleaning 
house were two shillings. Skilled labor among men was a 
trifle higher. During the last century, carpenter's wages 
were 4 shillings a day. In 1767 a carpenter and his appren- 
tice worked at a building three days for one pound six shil- 
lings, or at the rate of 85 cents a day for both. In 1805 
wages had risen to six shillings a day, and they soon after 
rose to seven, and finally about 1825 reached a dollar a day, 
which was then the price of a bushel of wheat. A ranson's 
wages in 1762 were five shillings a day, and rose to seven, in 
the early part of the present century. All other kuids of 
mechanics, as tailors and shoemakers, worked by piece work, 
their prices being equally low. In women's woik there seems 
to have been no difference between skilled and unskilled labor, 
the tailoress and the woman who sewed on a "gown" had the 
same wages as the woman who helped clean house. Twenty- 
five cents a day was the usual price till after the War of 1812, 
and a day's work at sewing meant from early in the morning 
till the tallow candle burnt out at night. Dressmakers' wages 
rose gradually to 50 cents. At the time of the war, like 
other things, they made a sudden bound. What they may be 
now we cannot tell, as we have very slight personal interest 



FIFTH SEMI-CENTEFNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 75 

in the matter, but there are doubtless plenty of unhappy- 
married men present who can testify with sadness of heart 
that they have not grown any less. We regret that we can- 
not offer them any consolation. So far as we can judge of 
the future from the past, it is "bad times and worse a'coming." 
The great characteristic of those days was that everybody 
worked. Every man and woman and the children who were 
large enough, earned their daily bread by daily labor. It was 
reserved for the folly of modern times to discover that it was 
derogatory or degrading for women to worii for themselves or 
other people. Every family expected to do its own work, but 
if hired help was needed, all that was necessary was to go to 
the nearest family that had grown up daughters. The person 
who should try this now might possibly escape with his life, 
but the experiment would be what the Insurance Companies 
call "extra hazardous." In 176S the daughter of one of the 
wealthiest men in the town, purchased of Capt. Elias Pelle- 
treau a pair of silver shoe-buckles for 19 shillings. She 
paid for them by spinning 33 days at 7 pence a day. {See 
note F.) Most of our young ladies, if required to get them 
on those terms would probably conclude thafc shoe buckles 
were something they could do without. Although every- 
thing produced here was low, yet wages appear to have 
been lower than anything else. The laboring man with 
his three shillings a day could buy 3 pounds of butter. It 
would take him two days to earn a bushel of wheat. A day's 
work would not buy a bushel of corn. He could buy 12 
pounds of pork, or a pretty good sized pig. He could get 12 
pounds of beef or 12 pounds of mutton, or a bushel-and-a-half 
of potatoes. As for fish he could get the best for a cent-and- 
a-half a pound, and oysters for long years were 25 cents a 
bushel. If the Town Trustees will only bring back that hap- 
py time, they are welcome to Mecox bay. Rye he could get 
for four shillings a bushel, a goose could be bought for a shil- 



76 ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAIT. 

ling. So much for his food. Lot us see how the price of 
labor compared with the cost of clothes. Tow cloth, then 
quite generally worn in the summer, was two and sixpence a 
yard; so two days' work would not buy him a pair of trousers 
even of this course material. Common woolen cloth was 
three shillings a yard, and fustian (a coarser kind of cloth) 
was three and sixpence. Flannel was four shillings, and 
linen three shillings and sixpence a yard. 

There is an idea quite prevalent, that in old times people 
were more on an equality and that social distinctions were 
less marked than at present. The truth is just the reverse. 
Our first settlers come from a country where social lines were 
very closely drawn ; they brought with them a veneration for 
aristocracy and high family. It would be useless to attempt 
to convince us (possibly more difficult to convince their des- 
cendents) that Edward Howell, Gentleman, and Capt. Thomas 
Topping were not several degrees higher in social life than 
Goodman Jones or Goodman Brown. "Mr." was something 
more than an idle compliment, and "Esquire" was not an 
empty title. Everything goes to show that the deference due 
to superior rank was willingly paid. When in our earli sf 
days persons were appointed to seat people in the meeting 
house in accordance with their rank and station, we find no 
complaint. It was well understood who were entitled to the 
higher seats in the synagogue, and who should take a lower 
place. Just imagine the result if anything of this kind was 
attempted now. The distinction between high and low, rich 
and poor, was then far greater. Instead of growing more 
aristocratic we have grown more democratic. Some of the 
settlers brought with them more ample means than others. 
This gave them a head start in the race and they kept it. 
Their descendants had, through the division of lands, large es- 
tates, and became wealthy families. While everything that 
was raised here was cheap, everything that was not produced 



ADDEESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETEEAU. 77 

here was high. Domestic cloth made in families was low, 
but cloth imported from England was very expensive. It 
was the policy of Great Britain to discourage manufactures in 
the Colonies, and to make there a market for her own produc- 
tions. Everything that looked like luxury, either in dress or 
living, had to come from abroad and be paid for at a high 
price. The '^Gentleman" then was known by his dress. To 
be clothed in imported goods was a sign of wealth or extrava- 
gance. To be clothed in homespun was an evidence of thrift 
and economy, and at the beginning of the Revolution was a 
proof of patriotism as an encouragement of home productions. 
Times have so changed that for any family at the present time 
to attempt to make its own clothing, instead of being an evi- 
dence of thrift and ecmonoy would be proof of extravagant ec- 
centricity, for the same amount of labor necessary to prepare 
the wool, from the time it came off the sheep's back till it 
goes on to the back of the man, would at modern wages buy 
the finest broadcloth. 

We have seen the price of necessaries, let us now observe 
the price of imported luxuries. In 1767 a watch was worth 
seven pounds, or about eighteen dollars, almost the price of 
an ox. Silk for a cloak was fourteen shillings a yard, more 
than four times the price of flannel. A silk handkerchief was 
worth seven shillings and seven-and-sixpence ; a liank of sew- 
ing silk four shillings. A paper of pins in ]7G0 cost one shil- 
ling four pence ; better ones can now be had for two cents. 
What becomes of all the pins is a question no one seems able 
to answer, but we know what became of some of those. One 
hundred and twenty years ago the owner of the account book 
pinned some of his bills fast to the pages, and they are there 
to day. The heads of these ancient pins are made of fine 
wire. Solid headed pins are a late invention. Now if a la- 
boring man wished to indulge in these foreign luxuries he 
would have to count the cost. A day's work would buy him 



78 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

a thimble. It would take four day's work to buy a yard of 
Taffety, but he could earn a gallon of molasses or four pounds 
of sugar in one day. It would take fifty day's work to buy a 
watch. It was then a rich man who could sport one. Tea 
and coffee were not then necessary comforts, they were un- 
necessary luxuries to be used on rare occasions. The best 
part of a week's work would be necessary to buy a pound of 
each. If he kept a gun it wouLl take a day's work to buy a 
pound of powder. If he was hired to do mowing, it would 
take two days and a half to pay for the scythe. It seems that 
they were made in this country, and to get a 'Thiladelphia 
scythe," he would have to sweat in the field three days. A 
hoe would cost him five shillings, but probably the village 
blacksmith made that. It would take two days and a half 
to earn a pair of shoes for himself, and they were not fancy 
ones either. Probably none of the young ladies present 
would feel particularly proud of being the owner of a calico 
thcss, but they would be if it cost five shillings a yard, and 
they had to work fifty days to get it. Let any young lady 
imagine working linrd for 50 days to get a calico dress, and 
then Li«lk of "tl.f !;('<)(I ohi times when everybody was happy." 
When pofetuge to iMevv-York was 22 cents, people did not 
write oftener than necessary. It would take a man's labor 
five days to get an iron pot to cook his dinner in. If he was 
ambitious, or foolish enough to wish to dress like a "gentle- 
man," it would take him nearly a month's work to buy the 
broadcloth for a coat, to say nothing of the other expenses. 
It is not so many years when ''to be able to wear broadcloth" 
was synonymous with wealth. We need not go further, to 
show how utterly impossible it was, in those times, f')r a large 
part of the community to possess things which we call nec- 
essaries. 

There was one article of luxury that the wealthy families 
always made it a point to obtain, and that was silver plate. 



ADDKESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAII. 79 

These articles, many of which remain in the possession of the 
old families, comprised tankards, porringers, spoons, knee- 
buckles and shoe-buckles. They were, in fact, the most 
common sense luxuries that a family could indulge m, for 
they always had an intrinsic value, and they never wore out, 
but would go down with unimpaired usefulness to succeeding 
generations. We have ample data as to the cost of these 
things. In 1772 Elias Pelletreau made for Hugh Smith, Esq., 
of Moriches, a three-pint tankard which weighed thirty-five 
ounces, seven pennyweights, which, at nine shillings four 
pence an ounce, came to nxteen pounds, ten shillings and ten 
pence. The making (or "fashioning," as it was called) cost 
four pounds, eight shillings and eight pence. Engraving a 
"cipher," or the initals of the owner in monogram, which was 
done in a very artistic manner, cost six shillings ; the whole 
cost being twenty-one pounds, five shillings and sixpence, or 
about fifty-three dollars and eighty cents. This tankard is yet 
in existence, and we have had the pleasure of seeing it. [ts 
value represents one hundred and forty-one days' labor of a 
laboring man, at that time. Of course none but wealthy fam- 
ilies had tankards. A porringer was a silver dish holding 
about a pint, and beaten from a lump of silver, with an orna- 
mental handle added. The silver weighed eight ounces, 
twelve pennyweights, and at nine shillings, three pence an 
ounce, was worth three pounds, nineteen shillings ; the mak- 
ing, or "flishioning," was twenty shillings, making the whole 
cost four pouiids, nineteen shillings, or twelve dollars and 
thirty- seven and one-half cents. A laboring man would have 
to work thirty-three days for one. To say that a person 
"could e?.t his pudding and milk out of a silver porringer" 
meant something in those days. Four table spoons cost three 
pounds, seventeen shillings, or nine dollars and seventy cents. 
An average set of s>ix tea spoons cost one pound, eight shil- 
lings and three pence, or three dollars and fifty-three cents, 



80 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

A man would have to work nine days and a half for them. 
To say that a person was "born with a silver spoon in his 
mouth" meant that he was a child of wealthy parents, and 
one to be envied. No gentleman's costume was complete 
without handsome silver knee-buckles and shoe-buckles. 
They were made of solid silver, and handsomely wrought. A 
pair of shoe buckles of the most expensive kind, cost one 
pound, eight shillings and seven pence, or three dollars and 
fifty-seven cents. Ladies also wore shoe-buckles of the same 
style and cost. A man would have to work about ten days, 
and it wouLJ require a woman's work for more than a month 
to earn a pair. It is needless to say that every one did not 
wear silver buckles. Knee-buckles were not as costly as 
shoe-buckles ; they ranged in value from eight shillings to 
twelve shillings ; brass buckles could be had for four shillings 
and six pence. A hat, one of the three-cornered kind, such 
as gentlemen wore, would cost one pound eight shillings, or 
three dollars and a half. A man must work nine days for 
such a hat. Broadcloth was twelve shillings six pence a yard, 
and tlie fashion required a liberal pattern for a coat. The 
bullous wci(^ no Mii.iU item in the cost 5 a set of gold ones, 
(then fashionable), were worth two pounds, five shillings and 
eight pence, or five dollars and seventy cents. Bright colors, 
as blue and red w^ere commonly worn. 

It seems that the dictates of fashion, which starts with the 
"400" and works their w\ay up (or down) to the 400,000, 
have declared that it is no longer "a:ood form" to call a certain 
very important article of mens' costume by the name of pant- 
aloons, but "trowsers," is to be the fashionable name. The 
arbiters of fashion, and the fools who follow them, certainly 
hit on nothing new in this case, for that was the name by 
which they were known here 175 years ago, and they still 
continue to be called so by old fashioned people down to the 
present time. Wiien our ancestors left England, "pantaloons" 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETEEAU. 81 

was a strange, out-landish name, recently introduced from 
France or Italy, and so new as to require a definition. The 
definition was "a garment composed of breeches and stock- 
ings, fastened together and made in one piece." We doubt 
if Edward Howell and his company ever heard the name. 
Trowsers, on the other hand, is as old as Shakespeare's time, 
and when this town was settled seems to have been gradually 
getting into general use ; but the word they brought with 
them w^as plain and homely "breeches." These, for every- 
day use were frequently made of leather; and doe-skin was 
in great demand for them. The old fashion of short breeches 
and stockings has been partially revived in late years, under 
the name of "knickerbockers." The general use of panta- 
loons came about the time of the French Revolution, when a 
large part of our population was in active sympathy with 
France. In that country the name "sans culottes," or no 
stocking people, came to distinguish the Democrats and 
lower class from the aristocrats. Here the Federalists, who 
represented the conservative class, and were accused by their 
enemies with favoring England and aristocratic ideas, still 
clung to the old style of stockings and knee-buckles. The 
last man in Southampton who wore them was Deacon Thomas 
Jessup, who lived where Capt. Barney R. Green now lives ; 
he died in 1S09. Now, let us «uppose that some of our 
prominent citizens, (our esteemed Member of Assembly, for 
example,) should appear in our streets with a large three- 
cornered hat on his head, a bright blue broadcloth coat, 
reaching to his knees, ornamented with gold buttons about 
as large as a twenty-five cent piece, a bright red vest, reach- 
ing to his hips, with bright silver buttons with his initials 
engraved on them, black velvet breeches, white silk stock- 
ings, with large and bright silver knee-buckles and shoe- 
buckles 5 and last, but by no means least, a long sword at 
his side ; it is possible — in fact, it is quite probable — that he 



82 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

would attract considerable attention. But tliat is precisely 
the way he would have appeared, had it been our misfortune 
that he had lived 150 years ago. And I cannot neglect this 
opportunity to express my sincere, personal satisfaction that 
Southampton should have honored herself, by sending to the 
Legislature of the State one of her noblest sons, and a worthy 
representative of her oldest families. And, while in common 
with all others of his ftiends, I cannot but regret that his voice 
had not oftener been heaid in discussing the great and im- 
portant questions of the day, yet it is a pleasure to testify 
that every word and act and vote of his has been an honor to 
h:s native town and the county that he represents. 

Slavery existed here in the olden time, but in a mild form. 
It was an unprofitable institution, ar.d when, after the Revo- 
lution, laws were passed for its gradual abolition, no one lost 
anything by them. A negro girl, thirty-six years old, was 
worth thirty-five pounds, or eighty-eight dollars, while a man 
thirty-three years old was worth two hundred and fifty 
dollars. 

There are some false notions connected with old times 
which may be worth mentioning. The first is that people 
lived longer than now. The old tomb-stones in our ancient 
burying grounds tell a very different story. Another is, that 
people in the olden times were healthier and stronger. The 
truth is that they were subject to all diseases that now afflict 
humanity, without possessing the knowledge necessary for 
their prevention j nor the means adapted for their cure. An- 
other very common belief is that the seasons have changed ; 
but we find that 150 years ago men were planting corn the 
first week in May ; hiUing corn the last of June ; mowing the 
first week in July ; cutting grain the last of July and the first 
of August ; gathering corn, (which was then allowed to ripen 
on the stalk), in November. This shows that the seasons 
have not changed. We once heard a learned physician argue 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETEEAU. 83 

that the climate of Long Island must have changed, as fatal 
cases of lockjaw are not so common as they once were. It 
did not occur to the learned doctor that a much simpler ex- 
planation is close at hand, and is a curious instance of a 
change in the manners and customs of a people making a 
change in things not apparently connected with it. Men and 
boys do not go bare-footed as they once did. It was custom- 
ary for boys to begin going bare-foot on ''Town Meeting day," 
(the first Tuesday in April), and it was kept up till frost came. 
Men always went bare-footed when fishing or engaged in 
farm work during the summer. A large percentage of fatal 
cases of lockjaw came from injuries to unprotected feet, and 
when the practice was discontinued, one of the principal 
causes of the disease was removed, and the effect was dimin- 
ished in the same proportion. 

There are two articles of personal luxury and adornment 
which well deserve mention. War and fighting seem to be 
the natural life of the Aryan race from which we spring. 
Everything connected with war and military life has always 
been held in the highest honor. Once all men went armed 
from necessity, and they kept up the custom long after the 
necessity for it had passed away. Even the simple custom 
of turning to the right when we meet a person is supposed to 
be derived from the time when men, carrying their weapons 
on the left, always turned their armed side to whoever they 
might meet, for they were quite as likely to be enemies as 
friends. In the old times we speak of, a sword was one of 
the distinctions of a gentleman, and were not coiifined, by 
any means, to military men. In old wills men very frequent- 
ly left their swords as a legacy to a favorite son. Josiah 
HowelFs silver hilted sword cost him £1 in 1774, or $17.50, 
nearly the price of 50 days' work of a laboring man. Who 
the last man was who wore a sword we are not informed. 
The custom ceased for all but mihtia officers shortly after the 



84 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

Revolution. Among the articles of female adornment was 
one that was a source of pride to those who wore them, and 
of envy to those who could not. This was a string of gold 
beads. Like silver plate they had a constant intrinsic value, 
and were very durable. A string of beads cost from $10 to 
$12, and were very highly prized. 

In one thing Southampton and the other towns on the 
East end of Long Island had an advantage over other settle- " 
ments in the Colony of New-York. The whales which were 
plenty along the coast, afforded a constant source of revenue 
and were looked upon as the special gift of Providence. The 
oil and bone were sent to England -is an important article of 
exchange for tlie manufactured goods of the old country. 
From some items of account we conclude that the consisfnees 
made every excuse for paying as little as possible for oil, and 
charged as much as they possibly could for the goods. The 
first church bell on Long Island, as far as we can learn, was 
paid for in whale oil. The general price of whale oil during 
the last century was two shillings and sixpence a gallon. In 
later times, in the famous year w^hen five dead whales lay on 
our beach at one time*, the price was three shillings and 
sixpence or forty-three cents a gallon. Whale bone was 3 
shillings a pound, a price which seems rather high. Of 
course in the old times before the days of kerosene, tallow 
candles and whale oil were the only means of illuminiition. 
A tin lamp for burning oil cost four shillings. Every family 
made its own candles. Persons who understood the business 
made them for a penny and a half a pound, and they were 
worth a shilling a pound after they were made. In all thrifty 
families three hundred and sixty-five candles were expected 
to last a year. It was the custom not to light them until the 
children, (who were generally on the lookout,) could see three 



* Winter of 1847. 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 85 

stars. More economical people never lighted them until it 
was so dark they could scarcely see their hands before their 
faces. Lighting candles before it was dark, and especially 
burning two at a time, were considered extravagences that 
would certainly lead to ruin. The candles were made by the 
old process of dipping and suspending from candle rods, until 
some time in the present century, when some Yankee genius 
inventrd candle moulds, and then tallow dips disappeared 
forever. 

We have stated that Rev. Sylvanus White, in addition to 
his ministerial duties, kept a sort of boarding school and 
taught the sons of some of the wealthy families the Latin 
language. The following items from his account book ex- 
plain themselves. 

Josiah Topping began to learn of, and board with me 
March 9, 1743, and lived with me a year and a half, till Sep- 
tember 9 1744, at 4 shillings a week, comes to £15, 12s. 
His schooling a year and a half £4. 

Wm. Smith, son to Nathaniel Smith, Esq., of ]\[oriches, 
began to come to school Jan. 4, 1742, went home April 5, 
about a week. 

Nath. Smith, Esq., Dr. to S. White for his son's board for 
12 weeks, at 4 shilling a week, £2 Ss. Schooling his son, 
£\, 5s. 

Now boarding house diet has never been considered condu- 
cive to corpulency, or dyspeptic diseases, and when we find 
the charge only 4 shillings a week we might have some sus- 
picions as to the abundance of his table or the variety of his 
bill of fare. But at the time every article of food used in the 
family were raised on ths farm. Things which we consider 
comforts and necessaries were neither furnished nor expected. 
Four shillings would buy a large amount of substantial food, 
and taking everything into consideration, the sum charged 
was about equal to $4 now. 

Suppose some of our elders and deacons should happen to 



8G FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

get a sight of the present clergyman's account book, and find 
there an item like the following : 

Rev. Sylvakus White to Francis Pelletreau, Dr. 17~9 
2 pounds of sugar. Is 4d. 

2 gallons of rum, Ss 

3 " '' 12s 

2 pounds of sugar Is 4d. 

3 gallons of rum 12s 

They would certainly stare and gasp and have hard thoughts 
of the buyer, still worse of the seller. If we can put faith in 
the entries in the account book, 14 pounds of sugar must have 
been considered an ample supply for his family a year. The 
cost of the liquor used vastly exceeded this. The general 
use of ardent spirits was one of the features of the times. 
Minister and people, Magistrate and day laborer, there were 
no exceptions, all considered it as one of the necessaries of 
life. It is probable that clergymen meet now, occasionally, 
to talk over church affairs, but we do not think that a pint of 
brandy and a quart of wine would be considered a necessary 
preparation for the event. To expect laborers in the harvest 
field, or engaged in any other fatiguing labor, to do without 
rum, would be considered the same as expecting them to do 
without water. New England rum was worth three shillinofs 
a gallon, but West India rum (a superior article) cost four 
shillings. When storekeepers, in the early part of the present 
century, advertised "a good stock of West India goods," this 
particular item was the most important of the lot. Rum and 
molasses cost about the same but there were ten gallons of 
the former sold to one of the latter. Things went on from 
bad to worse. About 1S20 the United States bid fair to be- 
come a nation of drunkards, and Southampton was fully up 
to the times. There is no statement so often made in regard 
to the past as this, "They had good liquor in old times, and 
it never hurt anybody." There never was a greater mistake. 
Human nature is the same, yesterday, to-day and forever, and 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 87 

that is the reason why the Proverbs of Solomon are just as 
applicable to the people of America in the City of New-York, 
at the present day, as they were to the children of Israel in 
the City of Jerusalem three thousand years ago. Wine was 
a mocker and strong drink was just as raging in the old times 
as they are now. They caused redness of eyes, wounds with- 
out cause, and laid men in untimely graves the same as they 
do now. It made widows and orphans, it ruined men in 
health, reputaticn and property the same as now. Within 
the space of fifty years all the farms but two, in the most fer- 
tile portion of our town had changed hands through the help 
of rum. It was a common saying, that rum had washed the 
face off Wickapogue. While drunkenness was always con- 
sidered disreputable, and the better class set their faces against 
it, yet no effort was made to stop drinking. The moral 
sense of the people at length became aroused, and the forma- 
tion of temperance societies accomplished a reform the bene- 
fits of which we are now enjoying, and the effects of which 
are seen in the prosperity and in the well established social 
order of the place. 

About the time of the Revolution, Hon. William Ellery left 
his home near Boston, and rode on horseback to York, Pa., 
where Congress was then sitting. The journey lasted about 
three weeks and the account that he gives of it is one of the 
most interesting pictures of life at that day. On his journey 
he stopped over night at a farm house in the south part of 
Duchess Co, After supper the daughter of the family took 
her wool cards, and commenced carding rolls, while the moth- 
er with her spinning wheel began her evening work. The 
father seated himself on a shomaker's bench and mended the 
family shoes. In the intervals between the clatter of the 
shoemaker's hammer, the hum of the spinning wheel, and the 
noise of the wool cards, Mr. Ellery and his host talked over 
the aflJairs of the infant republic. A more perfect picture of 
family life can scarcely be imagined. But if Mr. EUery's 



88 FIFTH BEMI- CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMrTON. 

journey led him through Southampton he would have found 
precisely the same. In old times more men learned the shoe 
maker's trade than any other, the reason being that they 
could work at that when they could do nothing else. 

We cannot better illustrate the changes in social life than 
by alluding to several men who in times pa-^t were well known 
and prominent. They were not men of the remote old times, 
for they to us would be like persons at a great distance on the 
surface of the earth. Although we can see that they are 
men, yet we cannot tell one from the other. The men we 
mention lived and died when the old times still remained, but 
when the new order of things was beginning to come. 

During the latter part of the last century ithe rich man of 
the town was David Howell and from that fact was well 
known at that time as "Money David." If a man wished to 
borrow a hundred dollars, "Money David" was the man to 
apply to. If anything was to be sold "Money David" was 
the man with ready cash to buy at a bargain. His farm at 
Wickapogue was one of the best and had come down to him 
from an honored ancestry. In his will almost all the proper- 
ty was left to his eldest son, while the younger set out to seek 
his own fortune. With that energy that never fails to con- 
quer difficulties, he began trade at Sag-Harbor and during 
his entire life was prominently connected with its business 
interests. He was one of the first to engage in the whale 
fishery which brought so much wealth and prosperity, and 
when he died he left a fortune large even for those times. 
The older brother, under the influence of that "good old 
fashioned rum" which we are told "never hurt anybody," 
went down in the world faster than the other went up, and 
at length with property gone, and in the hands of strangers, 
with health and reputation ruined he died, and was buried at 
the expense of the younger brother to whom nothing had 
been left. 

Seventy years ago, theie was no citizen better known than 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETKEAU. 89 

Ephraim White. A man of wealth and of iron constitution, 
his name has come down to us as a synonym of industry and 
economy. Labor of the most unremitting kind was to him a 
source of pleasure, for he had a constant eye to the results. 
Economy of the closest and most self denying nature was to 
him not only no discomfort, but a source of enjoyment. His 
descendants are among our best known and most respectable 
citizens. They are neither miserly nor extravagant. They 
are living in a style of soHd comfort suited to their means and 
worthy of their station. But this style of living is what 
Ephraim White would have called the most extravagant kind 
of extravagance. Things which they would consider daily 
comforts and even daily necessaries, would be to him luxuries 
that he could never dream of enjoying. He was a man of no 
small ability and possessed some commendable traics, but the 
love of money like a whirlpool swallowed up everything else, 
and when he died his last words showed the ruling passion 
stronger than ever in death. 

Another person equally well known was Sylvanus Eayner, 
' and we have noticed that those who remembered him always 
spoke of him with respect. A contemporary who knew him 
well said, '*'Sylvy Rayner was a man who started to get rich 
by hard work, and did it." It seems almost incredible that 
one man could have performed so large an amount of physical 
labor. To hire out his horse to go to Sag-Harbor, for five 
shillings, while he took his scythe and walked to North Sea 
meadows, and after mowing all day walked home at night, 
was one way of getting rich. To fish on a bunker seine from 
early morn to dewy eve, and then go on a bass seine and fish 
till early morn came again, was another way. This process, 
continued year after year, accomplished his purpose. He ac- 
cumulated property to the value of $10,000, which at that 
time was considered a very large fortune. But the natural 
result followed. An overworked body produced aberration 
of mind, which led to a violent and untimely death, and tlie 



90 FIFTH SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 

property for which he had labored so hard passed into the 
hands of very distant connections. It is safe to say that in 
the worst days of African slavery, no slave had a master more 
unrelenting, more unremitting, more exacting than these two 
men were to themselves. 

In strong contradistinction to these was another man who 
started to get rich by speculations and other people's labor. 
Probably no man was more prominent at the time and in one 
sense he might be called the last of the Gentlemen. He was 
one who wore the broadcloth coat and top boots. If he was 
not the last man who wore a sword, he was just the man who 
was likely to be. Somewhat pompous in his manners, a 
phrenologist would say that his bump of self esteem was very 
largely developed. But to get rich by speculation in South- 
ampton in those days, was starting in the wrong place. Spec- 
ulation in not mentioned in Poor Richard's maxims. There 
is nothing said there about buying low and selling high, and 
Poor Richard's maxims were exactly calculated for the merid- 
ian of Southampton. If there was anything that was con- 
stantly impressed on the young it was ''save." "A penny 
saved is as good as two earned ; for if you save it you have 
it, and if you earn it you are not always sure of getting it." 
Speculation was looked upon with great suspicion for it meant 
getting money without working for it. A speculator was 
considered something like a horse jockey, a man who might 
be honest, but was not likely to be. Under these circum- 
stances to get rich by speculation, would be like expecting a 
tree that required a deep and fertile soil to flourish on the 
surface of a barren rock. Although fur many years he en* 
gaged in more kinds of business than any other man, and con- 
ducted them on quite an extensive scale, yet at length the 
fabric of speculation fell, and for a small place great was the 
fall of it. Many a woman who had worked for a shilling a 
day lost the result of her labor, and many a man to whom 
50 cents represented a day's work, was equally the loser. 



ADDRESS BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU. 91 

We say that the old times have passed away, and so they 
have, but till very recently a last lingering relic remained 
among us. The old Jagger homestead, now in the last stages 
of ruin, is well known to us all. From the time when the 
land was a wilderness 250 years ago, it has been owned by 
the same family. From the time when the foundation stone 
of the house was laid 183 years since, it has been handed 
down from father to son, all the generations resembling each 
other in the most remarkable degree. Their faults, their fail- 
ings and their virtues were all cast in the same mould, and 
the generation that so lately inhabited it, w^as but a copy of 
w^hat had gone before. David and Harvey Jagger were the 
last of the old settlers. Their mode of thought, their style of 
dress, their manner of living — everything was of an age long 
anterior to their own. To visit them was to go back to the 
days of the Revolution, and though surrounded by all the busy 
world of modern life, they formed no part of it. While they 
lived the old times still remained ; when they ceased to exist, 
the old times forever passed away. Like the ruins of an an- 
cient temple erected in honor of a creed long since vanished 
from the earth, and to the worship of a god that is no longer 
adored ; so when we see this ancient dwelling hastening to its 
fall and destined never more to be an human habitation, it is 
to us the ruin of the Temple of Old Times, a shrine from 
which the genius has fled, a temple from which the Gods 
have departed. 



Note. — The lot on which the old Jagger house stands was laid 
out in the early days of the settlement, and from a fragment of 
the Town Records we learn that it was owned and improved by 
John Jagger, before 1667. In his will (1698) he left it to his 
sons, John and Jeremiah, and it afterwards appears in possession 
of the former. He built the old house in the same year that the 
old Church was built, (1707) and it has descended from father to 
son, down to the present owner, Mr. Franklm Jagger, who was 
born in the house one hundred years after its erection. 



N'OTES. 



Note A. — Prior to the Revolution the minister's salarj^ was 
raised by a tax or "rate." Mr. White's accovmt book begins with 
the followinsr entries : 



Mr. Samuel Jennings, Dr. 


£ 


s. 


d. 


April, 1727. To his rate for the year 172G, 


00 


OG 





April, 1728. " " " " " " 1727, 


00 


11 





AprH, 1728. To fatting- a beast, 


00 


9 





To rate for year 1728 


00 


10 


11 


" To Seponack pasture 


00 


10 





Cr. To 150 raHs 


1 


10 





To 80 posts 


00 


18 





Oct. 1733. To Bushel and half of winter api^les, 


00 


3 





To Barrel of syder 


00 


9 





To Bushel of apples 


00 


2 





To 42 posts holed 


00 


12 





To Bushel of Beans 


00 


G 





George Harris, Dr. Rate for 1726 





13 


G 


1720. Cr. 231 pounds of taUow at 5d 





9 


10 


To two bushels of wheat 





9 


00 


To four " " " 





18 


00 



A large part of his salary was thus taken in trade. 



Note B. — In the account book of Mr. John Pelletrcau appears 
the following entries : 

1817, July 11. Rev. John M. Babbitt came to my house. 
Left my house 4th of August. 
To 3 weeks and 4 days board at $2, $7.00 

Nov. 18, 181G. Rev. John M. Babbitt and wife came to mv house. 
Jan. 20, 1817. Mrs. Babbitt left my house. 

Cr. By cutting- a great coat 2s. 

By sundi-y of cutting- clothes Gs. 

Mr. Babbitt is said to have made the first yarn reel used in the 
town, which was fui-nished with a contrivance for making- a click 
ing- sound indicating- when a knot of yarn had been wound. 



Note C. — In Minister WTiite's account book occurs the follow- 
ing notice of Henry White, who was son of Elnathan White, of 
Sagg, and grandson of Rev. Ebenezer White. He was conse- 
quently nephew of Rev. Sylvanus White. 

Jan. 4, 1743. Henry White began to learn of me. 
Sept. 9, 1744. Went away to New Haven. 
Dec. 5, 1744. Came again to school 

Aug. 24, 1745. Went away. £ s. d. 

Charges 7 1 11 

Ml'. Elnathan White, Cr. To a steer 4 10 02 

Note D. — From Rev. Sylvanus White's account book. 

Wm. Smith son of Nathaniel Smith Esq. 

Began to come to school Jan, 4, 1742. Went home April 5, 
absent a week. 

Nathaniel Smith Esq. Dr. to Sil. TVTiite 

For his son diet for 12 weeks viz. from Jan. 4 to April 5 at 49s 
a week, 2£ Ss. 

Schooling his son 1 5. " 

Note E. — The following inscription appears on his monmneni 
in the Episcopal Church yard at Flushing : 

In Memory of 
NATHAN SANDFOED. 

Born at Bridge Hampton 
L. I. 5th November 1777. 
Died at Flushing L. I. 
17th October 1838. 
Late Chancellor of the State of New- York, and Sen- 
ator in the Congress of the United States. 

The magnificent mansion still known as "Marble Hall," was 
built by him at an expense of $90,000, exclusive of the cost of 
the land. The whole was sold soon after his death for less than 
$16,000. It is now a private lunatic asylum. 

Note F. — From Capt. Elias Pelletreau's Account Book. 
1768, October 5th. Mary Scott, Jackson Scott's daughter, Dr. 
To a Pair of Shoe Buckels £0 IQs. 8d 

Cr. Oct. 1768. By 28 days Spinning at 7d pr day 16 4 

By 6 days spixiaiag, 2 10 



ADDRESS BY REV. SAMUEL E. HERRICK, 



Our prevailing sentiment to-day, I am sure, is one of grati- 
tude — of gratitude touched with generous pride. We rebuild 
the sepulchres of our fathers, not with Pharisaism, but with 
devout and humble thankfulness. We rejoice as we ought in 
our godly ancestry and our goodly heritage. Many of us can 
look back through an unbroken lineage of six, seven, or eight 
generations of good and irue men and women to the very be- 
ginnings of Anglo-Saxon life on this western continent. We 
are thankful for the "blood of ancestry, in which," as Lamar- 
tine says, "is found the prophecy of destiny." To-day we 
trace our connection with the mighty past. We devote the 
hours to what the conveyancers call "searching the title," 
generally the most important and the most profitable work 
which the conveyancer has to do. There is this difference, 
however, with us. We search our own title, save the con- 
veyancer's fees, and keep the profit to ourselves. At any 
rate our legal adviser is one of ourselves, belongs to the fami- 
ly, and has common interest with us. The Hedges have 
been kept up well. 

We find ourselves to-day standing it? close connection with 
all that was greatest, noblest, and best in the mother-land in 
the most heroic period of her magnificent history. No other 
period of equal length in that history presents us with such 
impressive contrasts of good and evil, piety and wickedness, 
sainthood and diabolism, profound learning and brutish ig- 
norance, high tragedy and low comedy, as the great central 
portion of the seventeenth century in which our English 
towns were colonized. It was an age of immense literary ac- 
tivity. If we leave out of account the single name of Shaks- 
peare> the first settlers of Southampton were contemporary 



n^TVL SEMI CSSTlNimj. OF SOtTFSASSPf ON, 95 

with a body of men vastly superior in numbers and in weight 
to those "who gave lustre to the boasted age of Elizabeth. 
Glance for a nioment at a handful of names caught up almost 
at random from the century's history— names which must 
have been as familiar to our fathers as are those of Gladstone, 
and Grant, and Bismark, and Stanley, and Tennyson, and 
Longfellow to ourselves. The church was renowned during 
these years by such a constellation as never shone before or 
since upon her calendars. There were Jeremy Taylor and 
Bishop Ken, Tillotson and Barrow and South, Bishop Burnet 
and Archbishop Usher, Thos. Fuller and Bishop Hall. And 
the Puritans matched the church, with Baxter and Owen and 
Buiiyan, John Howe and Philip Henry. Sir Matthew Hale 
was Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir Isaac New- 
ton was writing his Principia, Shakspeare had been but few 
years dead when our settlers came— some of our fathers may 
have seen and talked with him — Ben Johnson was living, and 
Sir William Davenant. And then there were a host of poets 
and dramatists, big and little, ranging almost from the zenith 
of angelic song down to the nadir of the Restoration gross- 
ness and blasphemy : holy George Herbert, and Milton sing- 
ing of Paradise Lost and Regained, and Fras. Quarles and 
Habington and Crashaw, Dryden and Butler, Cowley and 
Waller and Lovelace and Prior, Dorset and Roscommon, Sed- 
ley and Rochester and Etherege and Wycherly. What a 
list! headed with glory and ending with the stench of the 
sulphurous pit I And the philosophers and historians— Cud- 
worth and Hobbes and Henry More, Clarendon and Evelyn 
and Burnet and Pepys with their scandals and tittle-tattle. 
And finally, to cut short what might be indefinitely extended, 
and leave sweeter suggestions in our thoughts — Izaak Wal- 
ton, angler and contemplative saint, and patient Lady Rachel 
Russell. 

Our settlers saw the whole wretched career of the Stuart 



90 ADDRESS BT Itrr, SAMUEL S. SEEEICE. 

dynasty, its interruption by the Protectorate, iis brief and 
disgraceful Restoration, its downfall in the Revolution and 
the safe re-launching of the Ship of State with William of 
Orange at the helm. In tliis brief space came the plague, 
the great fire of London, the Westminster Assembly, the long 
Parliament, the Savoy Conference, and the ejection of two 
thousand of the best ministers of the Church of England by 
the Act of Uniformity. The canvass of the century is 
crowded with notable figures and mighty events. We can- 
not dissipate time and thought by dwelling upon the general 
scene. I have hinted at it only by way of furnishing a prop- 
er background. The central and most important fact is what 
chiefly concerns us here and now, the evolution from this 
melange of the Puritan life which gave birth to the New Eng- 
land colonies, those of Long Island being 'among them. 

At the core of the Puritan movement there was a two-fold 
protest— against class-privilege in cliurch and state, and 
against worldliness of life. For several centuries the church 
of England and the great universities which were its feeders 
had done little for the great masses of the people. The 
churc'n cared liti]<> uv nothing for the man who plowed the 
fields save to be sure of receiving her tithes from his crops. 
All learning, whether secular or religious, was reserved as 
the peculiar privilege of the uppermost stratum of society. 
Church and aristocracy were bound together in closest alliance 
— were almost identified, indeed, in their mutual and exclusive 
devotion to each othei's interests. They would christen, 
mauy, and bury the poor rustic at the times respectively ap- 
propriate for such slender services, provided the appropriate 
fees were forthcoming, and God might take care of his souk 
Sir James Stephen, surely an unprejudiced witness, tells only 
the sober truth when he says : "To the great, the learned, 
the world-wise, the church for three centuries afforded a rest- 
ng-pkce und a refuge. But a long interval elapsed before 



FlfTH 8IMI-0EKTEKKIAL Of (SOPTHAMPTOJr. 97- 

the national temples and hierarchy were consecrated to tlie 
nobler end of enlightening the ignorant and administering 
comfort to the poor. Kicii beyond all Protestant rivalry in 
sacred literature, the Church of England, from the days of 
Parker to those of Laud, had scarcely produced any one con- 
siderable work of popular instruction. The reigns of Whit- 
gift, Bancroft, and Laud were unmolested by any cares so 
rude as those of evangelizing the artisans and peasantry. 
Jewell and Bull, Hall and Donne, Hooker and Taylor, lived 
and wrote for their peers, and fi)r future ages, but not for the 
commonalty of their own."* But Puritanism created a new 
era. It did something far greater than bring in the common- 
wealth politically. It revealed "the Republic of God," and 
insisted u[)on the blessings of Christianity as the rightful pos- 
session of all human souls — the "commonwealth" — in which 
no man can cliiim a sliare to the exclusion of his lowliest 
neighbor. The Pilgrinis Progress threw open not only the 
mansions of the Celestial City, but all the immunities and 
piivileges to be found by the way to the tinker* of Bedford. 
k\n\ i\\Q SainVs Everlasting Rest hYO\v^\\t the brightest cheer 
and the most lustrous hopes of the Gospel of the blessed God 
into the cabin of (he humblest weaver of Kidderminster. No 
wonder our grandmothers were wont to keep these old Pur- 
itan books where you and 1 used to see them in our child- 
hood upon the stand along with tJie old family Bible, and 
venerate them with an almost equal reverence. 

The movement was also a protest against worldliness, 
formali&m, and immorality of life. With our Puritan fore- 
fathers, religion and the church meant supremely personal 
religion and obedience to the personal conscience. "It meant 
truth and righteousnessj obedience and purity, reverence and 



* Sir James Stephen's Miscellanies, Essay on tJie Xi/e and 
Times of Hichard JBaxter. 



9S ADDSEBS BY RlTV. gAMtfEL E. HEfeBIOK. 

intelligence every where— in the family and in the field, in the 
shop and in the meeting-house, in the pulpit and on the 
bench. When they came here it meant compassion and 
charity toward the savages among whom they found them- 
selves, and good works as the daily outcome of their faith "t 
I have heard it hinted that the Puritan was an uncomfortable 
neighbor, a hard man to get along with. The fact, if it were 
a fact, came out of this protevt of which I have spoken. A 
half-dozen unimpeachable yard sticks, I take it, would make 
uncomfortable companions in a load of very crooked cord- 
wood. The moral law is an uncomfortable thing in an im- 
moral community, because by it is the knowledge of sin. 
But it is too late in the day to set up a defense of the Puri- 
tans. They need none. Their works have gloriously fol- 
lowed them. We may be content to leave the charges of the 
past to the records of history. The gross and festering scur- 
rilities of Hudibras are abundantly offset by the Pilgrini's 
Progress, the Paradise Lost, and the SainVs. Rest. Joiin 
Winthrop and William Brewster and Abraham Pierson : 
there are no names of kings or courtiers in the seventeenth 
century to rival these in brightness-— none that in passing 
have left behind them a track of beauty and of blessing more 
lustrous, more beneficent, more permanent. We may claim 
it, for it is easy of demonstration, that the seeds of our liberty, 
our toleration, our free institutions, our church not estab- 
lished by law, but establishing itself in the hearts of men, 
were all in the simple and single devotion to the truth, so far 
as it was revealed to them, which was the supreme charac- 
teristic of our Puritan forefathers. 

For two centuries and more the old Puritan spirit and the 
old Puritan life have been maintained to a very remarkable 



t Bishop H. C. Potter, Address before the New England So- 
ciety,. New York, December 23, 1878,,. 



rrTTH SEM1-CBNTIN!?1AL OF BOfTEAMffCm^ ^ 

de^eo in these eastern towns. It has largely constituted 
their charm for those who have been so fortunate as to stray 
in upon them from the outside world. They have been like 
sheltered nooks of quiet and undisturbed repose to the towns- 
man wearied by the rub and tear of a more compact and 
secular life. Our Eastern towns owing to their insular posi- 
tion have been comparatively isolated. Their inhabitants, 
marrying much among themselves, iiave strongly preserved 
hereditary traits and traditions. They have been most naive- 
ly and attractively siii generis. The influence of these broad, 
level lands and open-eyed skies has been kindly to the pres- 
ervation of a religious and worshipful temper never found so 
dominant where men are shut in between narrow walls of 
city or even of mountain life. The sailor life of such a large 
proportion of the population has also conspired to hold the 
common thought in intercourse with infinity and eternity. 
The hard work upon the farm and the livelihood wrested 
from the waves have alike nursed the sterner virtues of pru- 
dence, economy and independence. 

But the war and the railroad have made a new Long Isl- 
and. Life is becoming more various and complex, and more 
completely assimilated to the life of the world. I suppose 
there are rustlers now in the streets which once knew noth- 
ing more lively than Deacon John White'*: "schooner," or 
Captain Bill Green's new horse. There is certainly a new 
Southampton. And with all our laudation of the past to- 
day, I do not suppose that any of us desire that the good old 
town should be remanded to the Puritan times. Many things 
that were good in their day ought to become obsolete. "God 
fulfills himself in many ways, lest one good custom should 
corrupt the world." It is not the good old customs that 
need to be preserved, but the good old spirit. The essen- 
tials of true life never change j the forms of life are ever 
variable. Water, air, light, retain through the ages the 



iOO ADUEESa BY EET. eAMTTEL E. SEEBIOK. 

identity of their composition. The cup, the wind, tha lamp, 
will be adnptable. Out of the old-time life there has come 
down a shining current of thought, power, purity, and morjl 
energy. That current, however it may broaden, deepen, 
strengthen, and cut for itself new cliannels, must not be in- 
terrupted. Our business is to see to it that these same ele- 
ments which made our fathers wliat they were and gave us 
whatsoever virtues we possess, shall go on into tlie future. 

And now permit me to use the few moments that remain 
to me, in urging upon you the importance of guarding with 
some greater care the vouchers of your noble descent, the 
memorials of your venerable history. Our gratitude to-day 
ouglit to materialize in an endeavor, which shuU reach oown 
into the future. Lord Macaulay has said that *'any people 
who are indifferent to the noble achievements of remote an- 
cestors, are not likely to achieve anything worthy to be re- 
membered by their descendants," I am sure, from what I 
have seen both at home and abroiid, that there is no force to 
hold a community up to virtue like a perpetual impression of 
noble descent. The memorials of the fathers are the safe- 
guards of the children. The thought of Westminster Abbey 
fired the heroism of Nelson at the battle of the Nile. The 
crossed swords in Prescott's study did not make a soldier of 
Prescott, but they nursed in him a brave, heroic spirit which 
enabled him under sorest calamity to win the choicest victor- 
ies in the battle of a scholar's life. 

Many of our town's most precious memorials have vanished 
forever. Our fathers were too busy in planting and colon- 
izing, in wresting life from hard conditions, to think much 
about leaving behind them personal souvenirs. We have 
few of their portraits, few of their letters, few of the books 
they handled, few of the household materials which minis- 
tered to the narrow comforts of their life. The golden op- 
portuoities for constructing the infant history of our colony 



nrra sEm-oEKTEin?iAL or sou'raAMPToir. 101 

have for the most part passed away. Those which remain 
ought to be seized' with the greatest avidity. Negligence 
here and now is criminal. Much has been done by the in- 
telligent and reverent reseorches of Judge Hedges, Mr. Ho- 
well, and Mr. Pelletreau. Two hundred and fifty years from 
to-day the men of Southampton will be more grateful for 
their work, if possible, than we are. A noble beginning has 
been made in the History of Southampton and the printing of 
the town records, woitii more than their weight in gold. It 
makes one shiver to think how those priceless pages from 
generation to generation were moved about in an old wooden 
chest from one garret, to another, now to a grocery store, and 
now to a shop, and now to some flirmer's bedroom, subjected 
to the contingencies of flames and to the certainty of rats. 
"After us the deluge !" 

The present era of historical criticism is giving us back the 
ages that were beyond the flood, showing us the habitations 
men lodged in, the garments they wore, the food they ate, 
the language they spoke, their method of social intercourse, 
and the sort of government under which they lived. They 
have resurrected the Pharaoh of the Exodus and given us his 
photograph. I would give more to see the face of Abraham 
Pierson and to get a vision of the life ot Old Town as it was 
in 1G45. But alas for us ! It is far easier for us to get a 
picture of Zoar or Nebuchadnezzar. Now let us remember 
that as we feel about the memorials of tlie settlers, the men 
of the generations to come will feel interested in us. We 
owe a debt both to the past and to the future, which it is 
high time for us to begin to pay. Pardon me. We have &e- 
g%m — but only begun. Shall I give you an outline of what 
ought to be in this fine old town, of what it will be a shame 
by and by if it is not, in this oldest English town of the Em- 
pire State, pace Dr. Whitaker ? 

First then I would like to see the fairest lot of land to be 



XOS 4SSBE9S Sf BIT. SAMtTIL 1. S^SICStv 

found between Long Springs and the bench devoted to a me- 
morial use. Spare an acre or two from your generous farms, 
upon it to be erected a modest but dignified structure of 
stone or of brick, fire- proof, which shall contain primarily a 
public library. Mr. Howell and Mr. Pelletreau, how much 
do you and I owe to that old district library that used to be 
kept in Capt. Henry Halsey's back kitchen ! It did not do 
as much perhaps to fit us for college examinations as the old 
academy, but that back kitchen was the porch through which 
we entered into the knowledge of good literature. Let the 
library room serve also as a memorial hall in whicli tablets 
shall be placed inscribed with the names of the first colonists, 
the names, so far as they can now be recovered, of those who 
served in the wars of the Revolution and of ISJi?, and above 
all, of those who enlisted in the war for the preservation of 
the Republic. Let those be thus remembered also who have 
deserved well of the old town for their conspicuous service, 
whether in civil, judicial, or executive relations. Let a place 
be provided also in tiie building for the town clerk's office 
and for the preservation of its records. Then into this re- 
pository let every native and every citizen take a pride in 
gathering whatever shall preserve the memory of tlie past or 
throw a light upon its life. The place and time to begin are 
here and now. 

Begin with to-day and work backward as fast and as far as 
possible. Let the records of this notable anniversary be re- 
ligiously preserved. Is there in existence a complete file of 
our town's breezy little newspaper, the The Sea-Side Times f 
Believe me if it is not gathered at once, in a few years it will 
be utterly impossible. What would not a perfect file of the 
old SuJJolh GajBcttef the Sag-Harbor Corrector, or of its 
younger contemporary be worth t Do you know that for 
thirty years without a break the old DaboWs Almanac, which 
ujaed to hang ia the chimney comet of every farm-houae, g:iv» 



the namiBS of ships owned in the' port of Sag-Harbor, their 
tonnage, the names of their agents, the names of their com- 
manders and their last date ot sailing f Who has a file of 
them covering that thirty years from '44 to '74 ? I would 
like to see a complete set of the school-books used by my 
old grandfather Squire Herrick during the long time that he 
served in the two-fold capacity of pedagogue and town clerk, 
to say nothing of the primers and horn-books of a remoter 
age. But I cannot even find a Peter Parleys Geography with 
its wonderful poetry, 

« This world is round and like a ball, 

Goes swinging through the air, 
The atmosphere surrounds it all, 

And stars are shining there," 

which I used to study wearily in the long summer afternooths 
in the dame-school of good Mrs. Proud. Who can furnish a 
complete list of Dr. Wilson's printed discourses— two on the 
death of President Harrison, one on the Rev. Samuel Hunt- 
ting, one of our most beloved young townsmen, who died 
when he had barely assumed the pastorate of our sister 
church of East-Hampton, one on Rev. Amzi Francis, and 
various thanksgiving and fast-day discourses ? And the ser- 
mons of Mr. Bogart, to go no further back, that polished gen- 
tleman and ripe scholar whom we Yankees wooed and won 
fiom the Dutch at the West. Where mqIXw. Journals of our 
Early Whalers? Where, O wherCj is the log-book of Gapr 
tain Alercator Cooper on that historic voyage which gave to 
Southampton the honor of opening up Japan and introducing 
the wonderful people to the family of nationtj ? Where are 
preserved the portraits of Judges Halsey and Rose par nobile 
fratrum, and I may ask also, of his honor the orator^in-chief 
of our anniversary ? The best materials for the construction 
of future history are evanescent. I make a plea for their sal- 
vation Jo behalf of those who come after us. They cost little 



104 ADDBESS BY EEV, SAMUEL E. HEEKIOK. 

or nothing at the time cf their issue, their loss is utterly ir- 
reparable. Let me note this fact by way of encouragement, 
a fact abundantly verified in my own experience, of which if 
there were time I could give you abundant and most romantic 
illustration. Whenever an individual or a community fairly 
enters upon tins work of preserving the memorials of the 
])ast, a sort of whirlpool current is created about the collect- 
ion which rapidly brings in the rarest materials, even from 
the most distant and unpromising quarters. Gradually the 
past, will be restored, the lost will be found. Long-hidden 
treasures will leap from their hiding-places to find their com- 
panions and congenial associates. To him that hath shall be 
given, hat from Inm tltat hath not shall be taken away even that 
tvhich he hath. How much of value has been thrown away 
for want of a place to keep it ! The spaces upon your shelves 
or in your cases will appeal powerfully to generous posses- 
sors. In the long run things tend to go where they are 
greatly wanted and where they ought to be. Thus gradually 
there will come to be in our midst nothing less than a sort 
of village university, at once a centre and fountain of rev- 
erend and patriotic influences, a fostering nurse of afl^ectionate' 
veneration for the past, of brotheily feeling and social good- 
will for iha present, of generous forethought for the great 
future, whose generations will bless us in the coming centu- 
ries as to-day w^e bless the memory of our goodly ancestors. 

SAM'L E. ilERKlCK. 
Boston, Massachusetts. 



EIIRA.TA.. 



Page 10, 5th line from top, before "does" insert ^^and j" 

9th line from top, after "riglitcous," insert "laws." 
Page 11, 6th line from top, for '^er" read <-or" ; 10th line 

from bottom, for "Qork" in part of the edition, read '"York"; 

6ih line from bottom, for "IG70" read "1 010." 
Page 13, J St line, for "theii" read "its." 
Page 15, 1 1th line from top, strike out "the." 
Page IG, 12th line from top, ufter "ministry" insert comma. 
Page IS, 4th line from bottom, for "murning" read "mo/rn- 

in""." ' 

Page 19, 9th line from top, for "origihal" n;ad "originnl." 
Page 24, IGth line from top, for "denomination" read 

"domination." 
Page 2^, 2d line from top, for "shown" read "shone." 
Page 29, 10th line from ton, for "Toqueville" read "Tocque- 

ville." ' ^ 

Page 30, Gth line from top, for "jurisdition" read "juris- 
diction." 

Page 31, 12th line from top, for "instituted" read "insti- 
tuted." 

Page 50, Gth line from top, after "ol" insert "the," and 
after "said" insert "waters." 



